Woodcraft and Camping quotes

Mr. Spencer quotes that quaint old chronicler, Froissart, as saying, "The English take their pleasures sadly, after their fashion"; and thinks if he lived now, he would say of Americans, "they take their pleasures hurriedly, after their fashion." Perhaps.

It is an age of hurry and worry.

Anything slower than steam is apt to "get left." Fortunes are quickly made and freely spent.

The temptation to buy this or that bit of indispensable camp-kit has been too strong, and we have gone to the blessed woods, handicapped with a load fit for a pack-mule. This is not how to do it.

Go light; the lighter the better, so that you have the simplest material for health, comfort and enjoyment.

Of course, if you intend to have a permanent camp, and can reach it by boat or wagon, lightness is not so important, though even in that case it is well to guard against taking a lot of stuff that is likely to prove of …

But it is by no means water-proof in a rain or a splashing head sea, is more than twice as heavy—always growing heavier as it gets wetter—and I had rather have bread, tea, sugar, etc., a little jammed than water-soaked.

Also, it may be remarked that man is a vertebrate animal and ought to respect his backbone.

The loaded pack basket on a heavy carry never fails to get in on the most vulnerable knob of the human vertebrae. The knapsack sits easy, and does not chafe. The one shown in the engraving is of good form;

as I have run the list pretty well up, from brook minnows to 100-pound albacores, I may be pardoned for a few remarks on the rod and the use thereof.

A rod may be a very high-toned, high-priced aesthetic plaything, costing $50 to $75, or it may be—a rod.

A serviceable and splendidly balanced rod can be obtained from first class makers for less money. By all means let the man of money indulge his fancy for the most costly rod that can be procured. He might do worse.

The last phrase is very popular and always cropping out in the talks on matters pertaining to a vacation in the woods. I dislike the phrase.

We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it.

We get it rough enough at home; in towns and cities; in shops, offices, stores, banks—anywhere that we may be placed—with the necessity always present of being on time and up to our work; of providing for the dependent ones;

Take it easy, and always keep cool. Nine men out of ten, on finding themselves lost in the woods, fly into a panic, and quarrel with the compass. Never do that.

The compass is always right, or nearly so.

It is not many years since an able-bodied man—sportsman of course—lost his way in the North Woods, and took fright, as might be expected. He was well armed and well found for a week in the woods.

The smoke curls lazily upward; the fire makes you warm and drowsy, and again you lie down—to again awaken with a sense of chilliness—to find the fire burned low, and daylight breaking.

You have slept better than you would in your own room at home. You have slept in an "Indian camp."

You have also learned the difference between such a simple shelter and an open air bivouac under a tree or beside an old log.

But he said, "No; they like to build bonfires, and 'Ed.' can stand the wood, because it is best to let them have their own way.

Time seems to hang heavy on their hands—and they pay well.

" Summer boarders, tourists and sportsmen, are not the only men who know how to build a camp-fire all wrong.

… both looked at us, and Sile remarked that, if one of the boys wanted to go out to the clearings and "borry" an axe, and come back in the morning, he thought the others could pick up wood enough to tough it out one night.

Of course nobody could stay in an open winter camp without an axe.

It was my time to come to the front. I said: "You two just go at the camp; clean the snow off and slick up the inside. Put my shelter-cloth with Eli's, and cover the roof with them;

Notably and preferably with the fly if that might be. If not, then with worms, grubs, minnows, grasshoppers, crickets, or any sort of doodle bug their highnesses might affect.

When a plump, two-pound trout refuses to eat a tinseled, feathered fraud, I am not the man to refuse him something more edible.

That I may not be misunderstood, let me say that I recognized the speckled brook trout as the very emperor of all game fish, and angling for him with the fly as the neatest, most fascinating sport attainable by the angler.

They will take a tempting bait when held before their noses—sometimes; at other times, not.

As to raising them with a fly—as well attempt to raise a sick Indian with the temperance pledge.

And yet, they may be taken in bright daylight by a ruse that I learned long ago, of a youngster less than half my age, a little, freckled, thin-visaged young man, whose health was evidently affected by a daily struggle with a pair of tow-colored …

And, not many years ago, an old pork-gobbling backwoodsman threw his frying-pan into the river because I had cooked frogs' legs in it. While another, equally intelligent, refused to use my frying-pan, because I had cooked eels in it; remarking sententiously,

"Eels is snakes, an' I know it."

It may be well, just here and now, to say a word on the importance of the headlight.

Use it to brush any leaves, sticks, and any litter from about the camp or fire. Neatness is quite as pleasant and wholesome around the forest camp as in the home kitchen. These little details may seem trivial to the reader.

But remember, if there is a spot on earth where trifles make up the sum of human enjoyment, it is to be found in a woodland camp.

All of which the O. W. fully appreciates, as he finishes the above little jobs;

I've got a thousand-legged worm at the head of a pismire flush, and it serves us right, for a lot of slovens. Dishes should be cleaned as often as they are used. Now let's scour our pans and commence right."

Hot water, ashes, and soap soon restore the pans to pristine brightness;

three frying-pans are filled with trout well rolled in meal; a fourth is used for cooking a can of tomatoes; the coffee is strong, and everything comes out without being smoked or scorched. The trout are browned to a turn, and even the O. W.

The old woodsman, who has been rather silent up to this time, knocks the ashes leisurely from his pipe, and gets on his feet for a few remarks. He says,

"Boys, a bumblebee is biggest when it's first born. You've learned more than you think in the last twenty-four hours."

"Well, as how? Explain yourself," says Bush D.

Every man is free to "loaf, and invite his soul." There is good trouting within an hour's walk for those who choose, and there is some interest, with a little exercise, in cooking and cutting night wood, slicking up, etc.

But the whole party is stricken with "camp-fever," "Indian laziness," the dolce far niente.

It is over and around every man, enveloping him as with a roseate blanket from the Castle of Indolence.

Of course, this is progress; but, whether backward or forward, had better be decided sixty years hence. And, just what has happened to the obscure valley of Marsh Creek, is happening today, on a larger scale, all over the land.

It is the same old story of grab and greed.

Let us go on the "make" today, and "whack up" tomorrow; cheating each other as villainously as we may, and posterity be d—d. "What's all the w-u-u-rld to a man when his wife is a widdy?"

thin to the consistency of cream with liquor from the kettle, and drip slowly into the stew, stirring briskly meanwhile. Allow all soups and stews to boil two hours before seasoning, and use only the best table salt and white (or black) pepper.

Season sparingly; it is easier to put salt in than to get it out.

Cayenne pepper adds zest to a soup or stew, but, as some dislike it, let each man season his plate to his own cheek.

Treat it in the roasting as described above. It is not equal to the saddle when warm, but sliced and eaten cold, is quite as good.

And do not despise the fretful porcupine; he is better than he looks.

If you happen on a healthy young specimen when you are needing meat, give him a show before condemning him. Shoot him humanely in the head, and dress him. It is easily done;

It may be expected that a pocket volume on woodcraft should contain a liberal chapter of instruction on hunting. It would be quite useless.

Hunters, like poets, are born, not made.

The art cannot be taught on paper. A few simple hints, however, may not be misplaced. To start aright, have your clothes fitted for hunting.

Select good cassimere of a sort of dull, no-colored, neutral tint, like a decayed stump, and have coat, pants, and cap made of it. For foot-gear, two pairs of heavy yarn socks, with rubber shoes or buckskin moccasins.

In hunting, "silence is gold."

Go quietly, slowly, and silently. Remember that the bright-eyed, sharp-eared woodfolk can see, hear and smell, with a keenness that throws your dull faculties quite in the shade.

Hance found the trail easily, but the Indians had been gone a long time, and it was filled with leaves, dim, and not easy to follow.

It ended as nearly all trails do; it branched off to right and left, grew dimmer and slimmer, degenerated to a deer path, petered out to a squirrel track, ran up a tree, and ended in a knot hole.

I was not sorry. It left me free to follow my nose, my inclination, and—the compass.

and scores of her devotees may starve to death in as many different languages before she will offer a loaf of bread.

She does not deal in matches and loaves; rather in thunderbolts and granite mountains.

And the ashes of her camp-fires bury proud cities. But, like all tyrants, she yields to force, and gives the more, the more she is beaten. She may starve or freeze the poet, the scholar, the scientist;

A week of steady rain or a premature snow storm—either likely enough at that season—would have been most disastrous; while a forest fire like that of '56, and later ones, would simply have proved fatal.

Reader, if ever you are tempted to make a similar thoughtless, reckless trip—don't do it.

he canoe is coming to the front, and canoeing is gaining rapidly in popular favor, in spite of the disparaging remark that "a canoe is a poor man's yacht."

I paddled her early and late, mainly on the Fulton Chain; but I also cruised her on Raquette Lake, Eagle, Utowana, Blue Mountain, and Forked Lakes. I paddled her until there were black and blue streaks along the muscles from wrist to elbow.

Thank Heaven, I had found something that made me a boy again.

Her log shows a cruise for 1880 of over 550 miles.

18, '83: "I thought when I built the Nessmuk, no one else would ever want one. But I now build about a dozen of them a year. Great big men, ladies, and two, aye, three schoolboys ride in them.

It is wonderful how few pounds of cedar, rightly modeled and properly put together, it takes to float a man.

" Just so, Mr. Builder. That's what I said when I ordered her. But few seemed to see it then.