274 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June, 1919 
The fire-reflecting principle of the shanty 
tent was good, but only the roof reflected 
the fire’s heat-rays. Why not the sides 
also? Besides, the shanty tent took too 
long to set up. Three poles ought to be 
enough. So I devised a tent with a 
ridge pole inside, a gambrel roof, and 
sloping sides that would present a fire- 
reflecting surface to the camp fire. In 
eight-ounce duck it weighs six pounds, 
taking twelve yards of canvas to make. 
As one needs but little room in the 
back of the tent and plenty in the front, 
the floor area is a truncated cone, 8 
feet across the base, 7 feet 8 inches on 
the sides, and two feet across the head. 
To set up, one cuts a twelve-foot sap- 
ling for a ridge pole, and two ten-foot 
ones for the front shears. Slipping 
the ridge pole down inside the tent, 
projecting out behind through a small 
hole in the rear peak, the two shears 
are lashed together and the ridge pole 
rested on them and tied fast, at the front 
of the tent. To get the gambrel roof, 
the front edges of the tent are tied to 
the shear poles at points three feet from 
the peak, and then the front comers 
are pegged down, when the tent takes 
its well-known form of a gambrel roof 
with sloping sides. This makes it much 
more roomy for headroom than with flat 
sides, and is quite as warm. 
I used it this way for two years, and 
then added a hood in front. This hood 
required considerable practical study. I 
wanted something that would let in the 
camp fire heat rays, yet keep out driv- 
ing rain. I found that the shape shown 
would do the trick, leaving about three 
feet of opening from the ground to the 
bottom of the hood. The peak of the 
tent should come about five feet six 
inches high, when properly set up. This 
tent has been out with me for the last 
ten years, and is still the favorite, for a 
camping party of one or two. I have it 
m the authority of Colonel Whelen and 
numerous hound-dogs that it is the 
Lacing knapsack to mattress to make a 
sleeping bag 
warmest outdoor house in the woods, 
for, if there is still a hot ember left in 
the camp fire, its heat is caught and 
reflected down on the sleepers inside. 
For mosquito protection I hang a cur- 
tain of scrim from the lower edge of 
the hood to the ground. In Army shel- 
ter clothing this tent weighs 4% lbs. 
with hood and everything complete. 
A nother development that I have 
made from the shanty tent of 
Nessmuk is to retain its original 
roof and back and make the three sides 
of scrim netting. This makes a breezy 
summer tent, weighing 3 Vs lbs. and is 
a favorite for beach camping, where 
poles are hard to find. Two stakes two 
feet high, are driven into the ground 
where the rear of the tent is to go, and 
to them are tied the back-wall, comer 
grommets of the tent. At the front, two 
poles 4% feet high are driven in, and 
the front upper corners tied to them and 
guyed out to pegs in the ground. The 
sides and front of mosquito netting are 
then pegged down and the tent stands 
set up. It has a floor space five feet 
wide by six feet three inches long, and 
will sleep two men and a boy easily. I 
use it extensively, for beach camping and 
for summer outings in the woods, bass 
fishing. 
For a camp fire in cold weather, Ness- 
muk’s back-log fire cannot be beaten. It 
takes one hour of chopping to cut the 
wood for it, with an ordinary camp axe 
weighing 3 lbs. Five, five-inch logs, 
three feet long, two stakes of pitch pine 
or hornbeam for back stakes (because 
they do not burn through easily) two 
five-inch logs two feet long for and- 
irons; and a forestick of a three-inch 
log, suffice to build the fire. Twenty 
logs, running from three to five inches, 
three feet long, will last all night, in 
three replenishments of six logs each. 
It is worth while for the heat and cheer 
that it gives, and, in a permanent cold- 
weather camp of a week’s duration, I 
often use it, although for a hunting camp 
the tent stove is better, as one is too 
tired to do much chopping after the 
day’s hunt, and the stove uses far less 
wood. 
Nessmuk’s log range has been re- 
placed by light wire grates, and is now 
almost obsolete, except for permanent 
camps, where its strong, steady heat is 
a great comfort to the cook. I would 
use it today if I had a party of six or 
eight to cook for, but, as a rule, we 
have developed a system of each camper 
cooking his own grub and eating when 
he chooses. As I eat but twice a day 
in the woods, following the Indian rule, 
it works out better, particularly when 
we have tenderfeet along who must have 
their three square meals — or think they 
must! 
I T is in sleeping equipment that I have 
had to diverge and break my own 
trail the most from Nessmuk’s orig- 
inal ideas. He usually denned up when 
cold weather came on, whereas I regard 
the winter months as the best for camp- 
ing out. It was therefore natural that 
he should experiment no farther than 
with the blanket, which is totally in- 
adequate in cold weather, unless you 
have so many of them that mo\dng about 
with all that load is impossible. It was 
Admiral Peary, who eliminated the 
blanket and the sleeping bag together 
on his Arctic trips, who led the way for 
me. A sleeping bag is cold because you 
cannot wrap it closely around you, and 
is so wide at the feet that there are 
always cold pockets down there. The 
Alaska mail men use a bag of Arctic 
fox fur, tapered toward the feet and 
fitting snug at the shoulders, inside of 
which they can snuggle down, head and 
all. I used the same idea, in baby cari- 
bou skin, which is soft and thick and 
the warmest fur knowm, but I determined 
to have my sleeping bag a packsack by 
day to save weight, so I made the top 
half of the bag of a single caribou skin, 
and the bottom a sort of mattress of 
wool batting an inch thick. The whole 
weighs 7% lbs. The caribou skin was 
The Forester tent set up facing the fire so as to catch the direct heat rays 
