THE ART OF CAMPING 
From the Utilitarian Standpoint 
BY CHARLES A. BRAMBLE 
(Copyright 1906, by Charles A. Bramble) 
I.—TuHeE UNNECESSARIES 
=x |HERE is camping and 


|strictly camping out 
| | when he passed a winter 
== Jin the Arctic regions, 
“> <1 with one companion, in 
“1a snow shelter, feeding 
three times a day on 
bear’s meat or seal’s 
blubber, without pastry 
or dessert. Another 
kind of camping is when 
Papa takes the better half, with a choice 
assortment of marriagéable daughters and 
student sons, to his ‘‘camp” in the Adiron- 
dacks. 
My own camping has been of the more 
strenuous sort, and as I have been under 
canvas in the tropics as well as in the Arctic 
regions, I am foolish enough to imagine that 
I know something of the art. But I never 
go for a trip without learning something, 
and I have a suspicion that the only man 
who knows much about it is the Indian, and 
even he but understands the methods best 
adapted to his own limited requirements. 
A first-rate packer from the Rocky Moun- 
tains would find his knowledge of very little 
use in the far Northeast; the best Ojibway 
hunter of his tribe would cut a sorry figure 
out in the antelope country. All that any 
one may attempt is to'touch upon a few of 
the more salient points of the art. 
Three things a man should have: food, 
warmth and shelter from the elements. 
Each of these is important in the order 
named. Without food, a man quickly suc- 
cumbs. Without artificial warmth, ob- 
tained either through fire or clothing, he 
must inevitably suffer much in ordinary 
climates, and is likely to join his forefathers 
during some cold snap. Shelter is, perhaps, 
more a matter of habit, but if it is a habit, it 
is one that is so thoroughly ingrained in 
modern civilized men that you rarely find 
them, like Kipling’s young wanderers, sleep- 
ing with the ‘starlight on their faces.” 
Now, in every country that I have visited 
experienced men seemed to agree that pro- 
visions should be simple, nutritious and in 
such form that when swollen by cooking 
they gain largely in bulk. In the tropics we 
used rice and dried fish very largely and 
native servants could find plants for currie 
stuffs growing almost by the wayside. Less 
food need be carried in the tropics, and I do 
not remember the slightest difficulty in keep- 
ing the table well supplied with game, as 
animal life is considerably more abundant 
in warm climates than in temperate or cold 
ones, taking the year through. You will 
find open-air men of the same way of reason- 
ing all over the world. In the North, mess 
pork, beans and evaporated fruits and flour 
are the mainstays. Tin cans about a camp 
in the wilderness are the sign manual of 
the tenderfoot. Surely it is unphilosophic 
to take goods where weight counts, of 
which a heavy percentage is covering. 
The first thing to learn is a love of the 
simple life. I do not necessarily mean the 
simple Christian life which some are lead- 
ing in New York City, but the simple life 
in which plain food goes very sweetly on 
account of a good appetite, and in which 
most of the hours between darkness and 
dawn are taken advantage of for sound, 
dreamless slumber. I have no patience with 
the man who would try to duplicate the life 
he has led in the city out in the forest. If 
he be so fond of city life and its luxuries, 
why leave it? The woods are full of hard- 
ships, but they are hardships that the real 
lover of nature and of the true simple life 
revels in out of the sheer joy and lust of 
living that is his. 


