
THE ART OF CAMPING 
back of the tent as a protection, although 
it seemed but a slight one, and by the time 
I had finished I could hear Billy’s axe 
beating a regular tattoo upon one of the 
largest maples that grew in the immediate 
vicinity of our camp. Presently it fell with 
a crash that shook the hillside, and my 
stalwart companion began to log it up in 
the approved backwoods manner, so that 
shortly both trunk and branches were in 
lengths that could be conveniently handled. 
Here I was of some slight assistance, and 
together we rolled or carried the result of 
Billy’s chopping to our camp-site. There 
was enough wood to have warmed a poor 
city family half through a Canadian winter. 
We were to burn it up in a single night. 
Now my curiosity was intense, for there 
was no dry wood to start the blaze, and I 
had never seen a fire kindled from a green 
hardwood. Billy soon solved the problem, 
however, by quartering one of the smaller 
branches, then splitting one of these quar- 
ters still further, and, finally, making a 
lot of shavings which he was very careful 
to keep out of the snow and wet. At first 
his blaze was a tiny thing, and he had to 
nurse it with great care, shielding it from 
every gust, until he was rewarded by a 
flame that could defy the elements. After 
our cooking was done—I should have said 
that he found water just where he expected 
it would be, although nothing showed to 
my less practiced eye—the flames were 
forking and twisting ten feet in the air, and 
during the long winter night our fire con- 
sumed the whole of that great maple. 
In a country where birchbark is to be 
found the traveler should always carry a 
supply of it, for though it may be ever such 
an abundant tree you often fail to find it 
just when it is most needed. As every one 
knows, the bark of a birch is a highly in- 
flammable substance, and will start a fire 
under the most adverse conditions. To 
feed the flame you should have a supply 
of dry wood, and the best of all is furnished 
by a dry pine stub. For backlogs you need 
something green, and I know of nothing 
to beat yellow or gray birch; the smaller 
branches make excellent hand-junks, as the 
two side pieces are called. These in their 
turn“support a straight log of small dimen- 
sions known as a fore-stick. The space 
255 
between the fore-stick and the back logs is 
filled, in with the dry wood, and as this 
catches more fuel is added, until a fire of 
the requisite size is obtained. 
Woods vary very much in their value. 
White birch is a very poor wood, so is 
poplar or aspen, though each of these 
may be used when thoroughly dry. But they 
do not give out the heat that some other 
woods do. Pine is very good, so are maple 
and birch. Spruce sparks too much, often- 
times burning holes in your blankets and 
tent, and cedar also develops this def ct, 
though I, for one, enjoy its fragrance. 
On the Pacific Coast and in the moun- 
tains our Eastern woods are not available, 
but there are others fully as good, if not 
better. In southern British Columbia and 
in the States of Idaho and Washington there 
is the bull pine, which is as good as our 
Eastern white pine, and very much larger. 
Along the Pacific side of the Coast Range 
one gets the Douglas fir, and farther north 
the Sitkan spruce, each of which will make 
a fire fit for a hunter. The Sitkan spruce is 
very full of sap, and I once saw a curious 
experiment made with it. We had sawn 
down a small specimen, perhaps six feet 
through, and measuring a hundred feet to 
the first limb, and noticed, after it had 
been down a little time that a nick in the 
rough bark had become full of some kind 
of resin that had exuded from the wood. 
One of our party applied a match to this, 
and after a little coaxing we got it to burn, 
with the result that we started a fire that 
smouldered in that log for days, finally 
consuming it entirely. I have heard that 
the housewives of the British Columbian 
cities complain that the Douglas fir makes 
too hot a fire, burning out their stoves. 
This is, however, a fault on the right side 
from the campers’ point of view, as a good, 
hot fire is thoroughly appreciated in a winter 
camp, when the squalls come tearing down 
from the lofty Coast Range, and the nipping 
and eager air seems to find its way through 
the thickest mackinaw jacket as if it were 
a shoddy garment. 
Novices usually take parlor matches into 
the woods. Here they make a great mis- 
take, for matches usually become more or 
less damp and under those conditions 
parlor matches are not sure fire. The best 
