June, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
275 
The outfit spread out, showing 
sewed to a length of brown waterproof 
duck, 7 feet long and twenty-two inches 
wide, provided with grommets every 3% 
inches along the sides, and also with a 
pair of webbed carrying straps, so that 
it could be laced up into a bag and car- 
ried by the shoulder straps. The mat- 
tress had a similar row of grommets 
around the sides and foot. Before go- 
ing to bed, I open up the pack, lace the 
caribou fur top to the mattress, and 
so have a sleeping bag which fits snug- 
ly and is warm down to 22 below zero. 
Your top side is always the cold one; a 
few leaves under the mattress serve 
to make it comfortable and warm while 
the caribou skin covers the top of me, 
backed by its waterproof canvas. The 
skin itself is thirty-four inches wide, so 
it has considerable margin on both sides 
which serve as a seal inside the lacing 
and can be tucked in around one. To 
solve the problem of the cold dead-air 
spaces around my feet, I not only wear 
warm wool night socks but pull all my 
clothes inside the bag, shirt, sweater, 
etc. — the best possible place for them, 
because it keeps them warm and dry 
through the night, besides keeping my 
feet and legs warm. My coat or Mack- 
inaw I throw over my head outside the 
bag, for one cannot breathe the cold 
night air without getting chilled down 
by way of one’s lungs. 
This rig I have used for cold weather 
camping for the last seven years, and 
have as yet seen no improvement on it 
for lightness and warmth. For summer 
camping it is too. warm, and I have come 
to prefer a wool quilt bag weighing 3% 
lbs. This is home-made, of wool bat- 
ting and brown sateen, 7 ft. long by 30 
inches wide. To make it, I get nine 
yards of sateen and cut them to make 
two quilts 7 feet long. Inside each pair 
of pieces are shingled six bats of Aus- 
tralian wool, costing 20 cts. a bat, and 
then the whole is quilted on the sewing 
machine, in diagonals about a foot wide. 
Paraffined muslin bags and friction-top tins containing essentials for a camping trip 
all that is needed for camping 
and hemmed around the edges. The two 
quilts are then sewed together around 
one side, the bottom, and all the other 
side but two feet from the top. This 
makes a bag, with an open top, and two 
flaps down part of the side, which per- 
mit it being tucked around one snugly. 
For camping from May to October it 
does very well, and is wrapped inside 
the shanty tent with mosquito net sides, 
so that my tentage and sleeping bag 
together weigh but seven pounds. 
N ESSMUK’S double-bitted axe is now 
manufactured by one of our big out- 
fitting firms. I never used it, pre- 
ferring the plain Damascus steel camp 
axe of about 2 lbs. weight. The double 
bitt is rather dangerous around camp, 
as it cuts both ways and you are liable 
to lop someone on the back-stroke. The 
ice axe, with pick point and cutting edge, 
is a fine one for summer camping. The 
pick point serves to dig holes in rocky 
soil for tent pegs, and its cutting edge 
is ample for small tent saplings and 
light fire wood. Needless to say, its long 
handle is cut to about 14 inches. 
In Nessmuk’s time we had no alumi- 
num cook kits and no folding-handle 
steel fry pan, nor canvas camp bucket. 
All these have come since, so we have 
discarded his square tin ^ans (though 
I used them when a boy) principally be- 
cause tin scorches so easily. As alu- 
minum has three times the conductivity 
of steel, it keeps the fire heat from lo- 
calizing and forming a scorch spot. It 
is no lighter than tin, but much easier 
to cook with. Of all the welter of cook 
kits offered, I now carry only a nine- 
inch steel fry pan with folding handle, 
an aluminum bake pan 7x9x1% inches 
with cover, an enamel ware cup, a tin 
“growler,” kidney-shaped, holding 3 
quarts, and a couple of light tin mix- 
ing pans, 7x3 inches. They weigh all 
told 2% lbs. and are ample for one or 
two men, indeed I have often cooked 
for three with them for a week or more. 
The growler is for spuds, rice and 
stews, and goes in a canvas water pail 
shaped to fit it, and is filled with the 
smaller eats, coffee, tea, salt, bacon, bak- 
ing powder, erbswurst, etc. In the baker 
I make my corn bread, biscuits, and 
squaw bread generally carrying a flat 
bag of corn meal in it. The mixing tins 
are for cereals, making batter and 
dough, and for coffee and tea. One of 
them generally has the batter, while 
the other is simmering on the edge of 
the fire, with a couple of cups of tea 
or coffee or a dish of cereal in it. 
As to Nessmuk’s “other little muslin 
bags, we now have paraffined muslins 
and friction-top tins, neither of which 
were in existence in his day. In a small 
friction-top tin, you can carry half a 
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