FOREST AND STREAM 
801 
Looks Like the Real Wilderness, but Spots Like This Are to Be Found in Hundreds of Localities Near Cities. 
Week End Camping Trips Are Possible For Everybody 
In This Article the Author Tells How Easy it is to Find Spots Near Cities Where Cheap Shacks may be 
Erected and Good Fishing Found—A Few Pointers for Beginners 
VERYONE needs a certain 
amount of relaxation from 
business cares and worries and 
all seek it in various ways, but 
of them all the best is perhaps 
the week-end-fishing-camping 
trips ; something that is possible 
to all of us, and by the use of 
a little thought it can be made a permanent fea¬ 
ture of our lives. 
A short distance from almost any city a lake 
can be found, on the shores of which it is pos¬ 
sible to secure a small plot of ground on which 
a camp may be built, and withal a very cheap 
one. We use the word cheap advisedly, as it is 
only cheap in a monetary sense, giving us large 
value in fresh air and health. 
Several years ago we discovered how to make 
these week end trips a permanent thing and not 
the exception, as is the usual case, and the total 
expense was very close to two hundred dollars— 
very cheap when we stop to consider all the years 
By Black Bass. 
of enjoyment and good fishing we have derived 
from it since. 
Our camp is twenty-five feet in length, fifteen 
broad and sloping from six feet on the sides to 
ten in the center, under a peaked roof. It con¬ 
tains three iron single beds ranged in a row 
across one end, a table at the foot of the center 
bed, shoved close up against it to be as much 
out of the way as possible, one rocker and two 
straight chairs. 
In the corner near the door stands a small iron 
stove, which, eked out with an alcohol gas stove 
for use in the hot summer months, is all that is 
needed for cooking and heating no matter how 
cold the weather. 
Although the boards composing the walls are 
but seven-eighths of an inch in thickness, albeit 
well notched together, we have spent nights of 
zero weather there with a good coal fire going 
and felt no discomfort, although in any sort of 
a camp in the woods a night cap is advisedly 
worn. There is a deathly chill to the air on the 
very cold winter nights out in the virgin woods 
that will manage to creep in through the very 
stoutest of walls and roofs, and it is best to be 
on the safe side and be well protected from it. 
In the summer time, however, there are other 
things to contend with, primarily mosquitoes. 
And for protection against these pests we tack 
netting over the windows and have a long length 
of it draped over the door. Necessarily there 
are one or two that get in even then, but a slap 
or so over the spot on which one of them alights 
soon renders the camp free of them, for they 
will not enter after the light is once extinguished, 
and when the few that are in are killed sleep 
will be sweet and dreamless, something that we 
can not always boast of in the crowded city. 
We each have a boat of our own which we 
keep well out from shore at permanent anchor¬ 
ages, getting to them by the use of an old scow 
which is drawn well up on the beach during the 
week. 
This is advisable, as a well made boat that 
