402 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 12, 1904. 
TK* Ootimism of [Campers. ^' 
In all the literature of camping, how rare it is to find 
a writer who> touches with more than a hurrying pen any 
of the daily discomforts of camp life. Of the disasters, 
such as the capsize of a canoe, the burning of a tent, the 
loss of all the provisions, we hear enough. These things 
are too interesting to be passed over. But if we look for 
a true impression of a typical camping trip, we shall 
often find no mention at all of those constant discomforts 
which, small as they may seem to most of us, render 
camping anything but a life of ease. But as there are 
camps and camps, it would be well to define at the outset 
what may be considered a typical case of real camping, 
for we are not dealing with what is exceptional. 
By real camping I mean an expedition in a real wilder- 
ness where cot beds, fresh milk, and cook-stoves are 
rarely seen, where a tent is the shelter, and there is suffi- 
cient moving from place to place to prevent the estab- 
lishment of anything like a permanent camp, for in a per- 
manent camp one can soon have nearly all the comforts 
of home. The family tent with its board floor erected 
for a season beside some charming lake or stream, with a 
farmhouse just over the hill, is not a camp in this sense; 
much less so is the Adirondack palace with all its 
semblance of rusticity. At the other extreme an expedi- 
tion to a barren wilderness in the dead of winter is real 
camping, but hardly typical. We must seek our type 
somewhere between the two extremes. Let us have in 
mind, for instance, a canoe trip in Quebec or Maine, or 
a tramp trip in some wilderness where the waterways are 
impracticable. Bearing in mind some such conceptions as 
these, we shall rarely find a writer who gives anything 
like a true impression of the seamy side of camp life. 
Indeed, a man may camp for a week in the rain, and yet 
return to civilization with the assertion that he has had 
a glorious time— and so he has, if he is a true lover of the 
woods. 
But the remark of Socrates that there is a necessary 
connection between pleasure and pain, applies to camping 
as well as to other human experiences. And yet, if one 
were to accept the expert testimony of the vast majority 
of writers on camping, he would believe the woods to be 
a place where all the luxuries of civilization are ready to 
the hand of the true woodsman; and if, being a tender- 
foot, he should allow himself to be so_ far carried away 
by the enthusiasm of some camping friend as to accom- 
pany the latter on some woodland expedition, he would 
find himself roughly disappointed, and would doubtless 
return home about the third day — if he only knew the 
trail ! But supposing him to be made of the right stuff, 
he would become, by the end of a fortnight, as en- 
thusiastic a monomaniac as his friend. "To think," said 
a friend of mine, after his first trip, "that I have lived 
nearly thirty years in ignorance of the joys of camping!" 
So far from finding in the writers on woods lore any 
mention of their every-day discomforts, we find the exact 
opposite — descriptions of the absolutely comfortable bed, 
the tent "dry as a bone," the hot and palatable meal which 
said old camper and writer on woods lore has enjoyed. 
My own rather long experience leads me to the conviction 
that such rhapsodies do more honor to the heart than 
the head of the old camper. 
Excluding the oft-treated ludicrous attempts of the 
tenderfoot who, if left to his own devices, is uncomfort- 
able, as a matter of course, and confining our attention to 
the operations and experiences of the expert, let us take 
a typical description of "how to make camp" from one of 
the best books ever written on the subject of the wilder- 
ness, "The Forest," by Stewart Edward White. In the 
fourth chapter of this book, after a refreshingly humor- 
ous description of the efforts of the tenderfoot, I read 
the following : "* * * Look about you for a good level 
dry place, elevated some few feet above the surroundings. 
* * * You will want two trees about ten feet apart 
from which to suspend your tent, and a bit of flat ground 
underneath them. Of course the flat ground need not be 
particularly unencumbered by brush or saplings, so the 
combination ought not to be hard to discover." I have 
not infrequently searched for an hour for these pre- 
requisites; but let us get on. After instructions as to 
the clearing of the ground, an operation for which there 
is often scant time, the. passage continues: "Lay a young 
birch or maple an inch or so in diameter across a log; 
two clips will produce you a tent-peg. * * * 
If you are wise * * * you will" [I here condense] "cut 
them two feet long." This is all very good advice, but 
there are many localities in which a tent-peg is almost 
absolutely useless. Two years ago I voyaged by canoe 
through a region in which for two hundred miles, and in 
process of making upward of fifteen camps, we succeeded 
only once in driving four corner posts, to say nothing of 
tent-pegs. The country was a sheet of almost unbroken 
rock with a thin skin of soil, and we had to use rocks, 
logs—anything but pegs. Mr. White is not unaware of 
this, but note again the prevalent tone: "Occasionally 
[the italics are mine] in the North Country it will be 
found that the soil , is too thin over the rocks to grip 
tent-pegs. In that case, etc." Now, the guileless tender- 
foot, after reading this passage, would wend gaily forth 
in the conviction that pegging down a tent is, except 
"occasionally," an easy and expeditious operation. 
Many of the minor discomforts of camping result from 
the lack of time to do things thoroughly. No true camper 
ever spent all his time in making himself as comfortable 
as even his surroundings at the time would warrant. 
Assuredly hardly less than all his time would be needed 
to accomplish this result. Theoretically he might be very 
comfortable; actually he is quite contented with much 
less than the comfort that he might have. The time re- 
quired to do things thoroughly is curiously underesti- 
mated by the expert. For example, our typical passage 
describes how to erect a tent, if not in the most thorough, 
still in a very thorough fashion, and then adds : "If you 
are a woodsman, ten or fifteen minutes have sufficed to 
accomplish all this." To this I would say that never in 
my experience have I seen even two men erect a tent in 
so thorough a manner in fifteen minutes. It would be 
better to allow them half an hour and tell them that a 
shower is coming, too ! 
After the fire and a dry tent, the bed is perhaps the 
most necessary part of the camp. Is the ordinary balsam 
bed actually comfortable? Listen to Mr. White, and he, 
I repeat, is typical : "Fell a good thrifty balsam and set 
to work pulling off the fans. * * * In the tent lay 
smoothly one layer of the fans, convex side up, butts to- 
ward the foot. Now thatch the rest On, top Of this. 
* * * Your second emotion of surprise will assail yon 
as you realize hew much spring inheres in but two or 
three layers thus arranged. When you have spread your 
rubber blanket, you will be possessed of a bed as soft 
and a great deal more aromatic and luxurious than any 
you would be able to buy in town." "More aromatic," 
yes. "As soft" and "more luxurious"? Two* or three 
layers of balsam boughs have never made for me a "soft," 
much less a "luxurious," bed, even when the ground has 
been carefully smoothed beforehand. The bed may be 
soft at first, but after an hour or two of the sleeper's 
weight, the bones of the old earth can be all too plainly 
felt, as every camper knows, if he would but confess it. 
Possible it is to make a soft bed of balsam, but it requires 
many more than three layers, and you must freshen it 
every day if you would maintain its original resiliency. 
The proper way in which to build a fire follows next 
on our programme of making camp. What Mr. White 
says here is gospel, and calls for no remark, but again the 
time element, "in fifteen minutes at most your meal is 
ready." Quick work, if anything more than bacon, tea, 
and crackers is prepared, and yet it might be inferred 
from the preceding list of supplies that a more substantial 
meal was in progress. Now if you are going to bake 
anything, such as bread, or boil anything, such as rice, 
you had better allow at least three-quarters of an hour, 
and a full hour will hurry you less. But Mr. White al- 
lows only "a little over an hour" for the whole series of 
operations of making camp, picking and spreading balsam, 
cooking and eating supper, and washing the dishes ! In 
reality a party of four experienced campers, with the ad- 
vantage of dividing the labor, will consume more time 
than this unless they are in a great hurry. One man, if 
he is merely human, can scarcely accomplish it all in less 
than twice the time. 
But in all this description there is not even allusion to 
certain minor, but very real, discomforts. These center 
closely about the one word "fuel." In the woods one is, 
of course, never at a loss for fuel, but good fuel— that is, 
wood that will burn with a clear, bright flame, giving 
forth no smoke of any account, and scarcely any flying 
ashes — is by no means so easy to get. It can nearly al- 
ways be had if you search long enough and persistently 
enough ; but, unless you are in a permanent camp, you 
will rarely do this. Logically, then, you will do most of 
your cooking wth wood that either plentifully besprinkles 
every open dish with ashes or sends forth a smoke so 
blinding that you crouch by the fire with streaming eyes, 
in vain trying to see what you are cooking. Who has not 
had the joy of cursing some especially cantankerous fire 
of this sort? I vividly remember one particular fire which 
made every member of the party — and there were six — 
weep as though all his friends were dying. It was rain- 
ing hard, and with much pains we had raised our tent 
and built a large fire to dry the interior. The fire was 
about eight feet from the opening of the tent, and the 
wind was apparently blowing in just the right direction— 
from the tent toward the fire. But whenever that smoke 
eddied back into the tent, we were nearly suffocated. The 
fuel consisted of white birch and mountain ash; good 
woods enough, it would seem, but with the rain and wind 
the combination was — well, we gave it a strong name. 
At any rate, that smoke would have drawn tears from 
a wooden Indian. 
As to floating particles of ashes in the food, or a film 
of midges over your cup of tea, Mr. White does not 
mention them because they are, or to be strictly accurate, 
the former is, a regular concomitant of meals in the 
woods. The tenderfoot who is really game, objects, I 
believe, more to . the appearance of these things — the ap- 
parent uncleanliness — than to the possible results on his 
internal organism. It is a discomfort chiefly to the eye — - 
the aesthetic sense, if you will. 
But the chief discomfort that can befall a camping 
party, is continuous rain. With the forest dripping, the 
constant hunt for anything approximating dry wood, the 
ground like a sponge, the necessity of eating nearly every 
meal in a tent crowded with kit-bags and duffle, life be- 
comes one long soak, and it is a severe test to the man 
who is making his first trip. If you afe out for only a 
week, it may rain practically ail the time, This expe- 
rience has probably befallen most old campers. It is 
better, indeed, to wear out Jupiter Pluvius, for even he 
at last grows weary, by staying out a month. You are 
then sure of at least some good weather. 
There is, at any rate, one annoyance about which all 
writers on woodcraft have enough to say. The ubiquitous 
insect pest— be he mosquito, black fly, deer fly, midge, or 
what you will— is so constant a nuisance that he has 
usually received the distinction of a separate chapter. 
And he deserves it. But the increasing use of an inner 
tent of cheesecloth or tariatan is lessening his power. 
By this device he can be absolutely prevented from using 
his weapon at night, and even "hees sing/' to quote Mr. 
White's half-breed, may be so far removed as to cause 
no annoyance. By day these pests are rarely so trouble- 
some to most of us that we need employ even our favorite 
fly dope. At any rate, we can carry on the fight with the 
gusto born of an undisturbed night's sleep. If a man can 
sleep well in camp, he can endure much. 
Admitting, then, that a good Camping spot is difficult to 
discover in the time ordinarily at your disposal, that very 
often you will find your house veriiy builded on a rock; 
that instead of the soft balsam you may be forced to make 
your bed of the wiry, sharp-tined spruce; that not infre- 
quently you may make camp in the rain and snatch a 
hasty supper in your tent on ground oozy with moisture 
and in an atmosphere dim with insects — for they^ tOOj 
like to come in out of the rain — admitting these and a 
score of like exigencies, some of which are sure to 
occur every day, it is evident that a camp without some 
sort of discomfort is a rarity. This is none the less true 
even if most of the discomforts might be obviated by 
sufficient care and time on your part. After all, you are 
in the woods for other purposes than the maintenance of 
your personal comfort at its highest possible point. If 
the trout are biting particularly well, you afe not likely 
to cut short your sport because your bed happens to 
need a little more balsam or the fuel near camp is not 
quite so good as you could wish. 
The indubitable fact is that even the old camper ex- 5 
periences evefy day discomforts of which he fails to 
give sufficient impression when he takes up his pen. And 
why this apparent lapse of memory, for is it not wilful 
perversion? The answer is not far to seek. All old 
campers are optimists — "hopeless optimists," a friend of 
mine calls them — in matters touching the woods. Three 
layers of balsam boughs really seem "soft and luxurious" 
to them. They do not object to a few ashes or a little 
bark in their food; it is "clean dirt." The pungent smoke 
of the camp-fire leaves no smart in their memories, what- 
ever may be true of their eyes. Even veritable disasters, 
such as the wreck of a canoe, the loss of all the cooking 
utensils, and the like, assume a roseate hue in retrospect. 
They remember the ludicrous or the didactic, rarely the 
serious, aspect of such experiences. 
Occasionally, however, we encounter a writer whose 
sense of truth is not smothered by his love of the forest. 
Charles Dudley Warner was a man of this sort. Loving 
the woods as well as any man, he was not blind to the 
fact that hardship and discomfort are the ordinary lot of 
the camper. His charmingly satiric descriptions of camp 
cookery and camp beds have been often quoted, and they 
are true to the life. But he has gone deeper and noted 
the prevalent attitude of campers toward their beloved 
mistress. "He who has once experienced the fascination 
of woods-life never escapes its enticement : in the memory 
nothing remains but its charm." These are the closing 
words of "In the Wilderness," and who can doubt their 
essential truth? 
The old camper naturally becomes a confirmed optimist. 
He has learned to take nature in all her moods, her 
worst as well as her best, and to love her with a love 
that overlooks her vagaries for the sake of her surpassing 
virtues. He is like the lover in Horace who admired 
his sweetheart's wen simply because it was hers. Listen 
to the following confession of faith from a man* who 
knows nature thoroughly and loves her well : "Some of 
us do not believe that 'sad tales of privation and hard- 
ship' are often necessary. We go into that sort of thing 
voluntarily on the football team. Some of us have been 
in the wretchedest country of the north, with no dry 
clothes for two weeks at a time, often making some sort 
of camp in a swamp or on a cliff when caught by night, 
sometimes with not a thing to eat all day long, because 
the storms were too furious, or there was no time to stop 
to get food. Cold, wet, and hungry — this may sound 
like complaint and a sad tale, but it is not. Personally 
I would rather be there now than to have the best bed 
and board at the Waldorf-Astoria, although I dine there 
to-night. Give me instead a seat on the thick, wet cari- 
bou moss, with the sleet bounding off the tin platter that 
is washed sometimes, and on the platter some wood-rat 
stew with poplar buds on the side. For a relish a seal- 
oil salad of brake sprouts. For dessert a handful of spice 
cranberries picked on the spot, and for luxury a cup of 
hot tea without sugar or milk, and flavored with nothing 
excepting the sweet, pure, strong wind that almost puts 
out the fire of the willow sticks." Here speaks the true 
lover of nature; this is the creed of the true camper. We 
go to the woods on various pretexts, to hunt, to fish, to 
let the tired brain lie fallow for a time, but at bottom the 
confirmed camper goes because of that deep-rooted love 
•Dr. Robert T. Morris in Forest and Stream, March, 1904. 
