MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA.* 



By THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. 



M 



OOSE-HUNTING, if it has no other advantages, at least 

 leads a man to solitude and the woods, and life in the 

 woods tends to develop many excellent qualities which are 

 not invariably produced by what we are pleased to call our civil- 

 ization. It makes a man patient and able to bear constant disap- 

 pointments ; it enables him to endure hardships with indifference, 

 and it produces a feeling of self-reliance which is both pleasant and 

 serviceable. True luxury, to my mind, is only to be found in such a 

 life. No man who has not experienced it knows what an exhilarat- 

 ing feeling it is to be entirely independent of weather, comparatively 

 indifferent to hunger, thirst, cold, and heat, and to feel himself capa- 

 ble, not only of supporting, but of enjoying life thoroughly, and that 

 by the mere exercise of his own faculties. Happiness consists in 

 having few wants and being able to satisfy them, and there is more 

 real comfort to be found in a birch-bark camp than in the most 

 luxuriously furnished and carefully appointed dwelling. 



Such a home I have often helped to make. It does not belong 

 to any recognized order of architecture, although it may fairly claim 

 an ancient origin. To erect it requires no great exercise of skill, 

 and calls for no training in art schools. I will briefly describe it. 



A birch-bark camp is made in many ways. The best plan is to 



build it in the form of a square, varying in size according to the 



number of inhabitants that you propose to accommodate. Having 



selected a suitable level spot and cleared away the shrubs and rub- 



* Reprinted, by permission, from " The Nineteenth Century." 



