McCue Janet - Camping and woodcraft; a handbook for vacation campers and for travelers in the wilderness

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

To

THE SHADE OF NESSMUK

IN THE

HAPPY HUNTING GROUND

7'p- 629()0

PREFACE

The present work is based upon my Book of Camping and Woodcraft, which appeared in igo6. All of the original material here retained has been revised, and so much new matter has been added that this is virtually a new work, filling two volumes instead of one.

My first book was intended as a pocket manual for those who travel where there are no roads and who perforce must go light. I took little thought of the fast-growing multitude who go to more accessible places and camp out just for the pleasure and healthfulness of open-air life. It had seemed to me that outfitting a party for fixed camp w^ithiri reach of wagons was so simple that nobody would want advice about it. But I have learned that such matters are not so easy to the multitude as I had assumed; and there are, to be sure, " wrinkles," plenty of them, in equipping and managing stationary camps that save trouble, annoyance, or expense. Consequently I am adding several chapters expressly for that class of campers, and I treat the matter of outfitting much more fully than before.

It is not to be supposed that experienced travelers w^ill agree with me all around in matters of equipment. Every old camper has his own notions about such things, and all of us are apt to be a bit dogmatic. As Richard Harding Davis says, " The same article that one declares is the most essential to his comfort, health, and happiness is the very first thing that another will throw into the trail. A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor. I have heard veterans sitting

PREFACE

around a camp-fire proclaim the superiority of their kits with a jealousy, loyalty, and enthusiasm they would not exhibit for the flesh of their flesh and the bone of their bone. On a campaign you may attack a man's courage, the flag he serves, the newspaper for which he works, his intelligence, or his camp manners, and he will Ignore you; but If you criticise his patent water-bottle he will fall upon you with both fists."

Yet all of us who spend much time in the woods are keen to learn about the other fellow's " kinks." And field equipment is a most excellent hobby to amuse one during the shut-in season. I know nothing else that so restores the buoyant optimism of youth as overhauling one's kit and planning trips for the next vacation. Solomon himself knew the heart of man no better than that fine old sportsman who said to me *' It isn't the fellow who's catching lots of fish and shooting plenty of game that's having the good time: it's the chap who's getting ready to do it."

I must thank the public for the favor It showed my Book of Camping and Woodcraft, which passed, with slight revision, through seven editions in ten years. For a long time I have wished to expand the work and bring it up to date. As there is a well-defined boundary between the two subjects of camping and woodcraft. It has seemed best to devote a separate volume to each. The first of these is here offered, to be followed as soon as practicable by the other, which will deal chiefly with such shifts and expedients as are learned or practised in the wilderness itself, where we have nothing to choose from but the raw materials that lie around us.

Acknowledgments are due to the D. T. Aber-cromble Co., New York, the Abercromble & Fitch Co., New York, and the New York Sporting Goods Co., for permission to reproduce certain illustrations of tents and other equipment.

This book had its origin in a series of articles

PREFACE

under the same title that I contributed, in 1904-1906, to the magazine Field and Stream. Other sections have been published, in whole or in part, in Sports Afield, Recreation, Forest and Strs'am, and Outing. A great deal of the work here appears for the first time.

Many of these pages were written in the wilderness, where there were abundant facilities for testing the value of suggestions that were outside the range of my previous experience. In this connection I must acknowledge indebtedness to a scrap-book full of notes and clippings from sportsmen's journals which was one of the most valued tomes in the rather select " library " that graced half a soap-box in one corner of my cabin.

I owe much both to the spirit and the letter of that classic in the literature of outdoor life, the little book on Woodcraft, by the late George R. Sears, who is best known by his Indian-given title of '' Nessmuk." To me, in a peculiar sense, it has been rermdium utriusque fortunce; and it is but fitting that I should dedicate to the memory of its author this pendant to his work.

Horace Kephart. Bryson City, N. C, February, 1916.

PAGE

Wall Tent with Fly ",9

Extension Fly 36

Tropica' Tent 37

Bobbinet Window 39

Mosquito Curtain 39

Asbestos Pipe Guard 40

Locating Corner of the Tent 42

Tent Stake and Guy Rope 43

U. S. Army Wall Tent with Fly (Officers' Ten:) 4s

Storm Set 45

Wall Tent on Shears with Guy Frame ... 46

Lashing for Shear Legs 47

Shear Legs Spread 47

Magnus Hitch (not apt to slip along a pole) . 47

Wall Tent with Side Bars 48

Trenching Tent 49

Tent Floor 50

Guys Weighted with Log 51

Guy Rope Fastened to Fagot to Be Burled i 1

Ground 51

Narrow Cot 54

Compact Cot 54

Telescoping Cot 54

Cot with Mosquito Screen 54

Folding Chair 56

Folding Arm Chair 56

Roll-up Table 56

Roll-up Table Top 56

Table with Shelf 57

Compact Table 57

Folding Shelves 57

Wall Pocket 57

Small Camp Stove 61

Stove Packed 61

PAGE

Stove for Large Wood 6i

Field Range 62

Field Range (packed) 62

Dutch Oven 64

U. S. A. Conical Tent 78

Sibley Tent Stoves 79

Miner's Tent 83

Frazer Tent 8

Marquee 83

George Tent 84

Layout of George Tent 85

Royce Tent . 87

Royce Tent 89

Royce Tent 90

Wedge Tent, Outside Ridge Rope 92

Pegging Bottom of Tent 92

Side Parrels .... 93

Whymper Alpine Tent 95

Hudson Bay Tent 95

Ross Alpine Tent 96

Separable Shelter Tent 96

Shelter half with Wall 97

Tarpaulin Tent 98

Baker Tent 99

Camp-fire Tent 100

Canoe Tent with Pole 102

Canoe Tent with Ridge 102

Compac Tent 104

Snow Tent 105

Explorer's Tent 106

Little Giant Scale 115

Cooking Pot 119

Pot Chain 119

Coffee Pot 119

Miner's Coffee Pot 119

Cup 120

Miller Frying Pan 120