FOREST AND S T R E A M 
1231 
THE OPEN CAMP IN WINTER 
FINE FOR THE ROBUST AND BENEFICIAL 
FOR EVERYBODY, IF CAUTION IS TAKEN 
By Old Camper. 
spring (what the womenfolks term “ ’tween seasons”) the tent 
is indispensable for warding off the unseasonable drenching 
shower. And, if you will, carry the tent in midwinter, but—• 
don’t let it be a burden. 
If such a covering is essential to your comfort or peace of 
mind, if you must have the extra weight, let it be good weight; 
extend the limit of your load to allow for a heavy oiled silk. 
For after a rain comes frost and the folds of your tent will 
freeze together. Then only the gentlest handling will prevent 
tears in the lighter material. Experience taught me the use¬ 
fulness and the welcome companionship of a tent in these un¬ 
reliable ’tween seasons. I started on a two hundred mile hike 
with the dogs in Northern Ontario—one Eastertime—without a 
tent. Three days on the trail and an early rain caught us 
unprepared. 
It had a thirty-mile breeze behind it. Despite our efforts 
to make a shelter of rubber sheets and sleigh-wrappers, our 
eiderdowns, blankets and duffle bags were soaked through in 
a short time. By daylight the temperature had dropped to six 
below, the rain changed to snow and a blizzard from the 
north’ard was in full swing. 
Of course everything froze. Blankets would not go into their 
bags and the added weight of water was killing. Result: 
seven days late in reaching our destination, seven days added 
to a journey whose object was neither sport nor pleasure, and— 
another lesson forcibly, hut well learnt. 
However, it is in the cold midwinter weather that we would 
seek our outing; when the driving flakes are hard and dry and 
bite into your cheeks and the boughs crackle with the frost. 
Then is the time to join with those who joy in the untrammelled, 
out-of-doors and from choice select the world-old canopy of 
God’s blue heavens for their roof, who leave the stops of their 
mildew-smelling tents tied and take theirs in the open. 
Try the open camp in midwinter, you who are still looking 
for the new sensation. Try it fairly and you will come back to the 
T HE style of brush camp here described is 
recommended mainly as a one night shelter 
for expeditious travelling; for those who 
are “here today and gone tomorrow.” It has 
little claim to permanence. Throughout the Can¬ 
adian Northland it is the commonest form of 
shelter used, by Indian, breed and white, and its 
popularity is undoubtedly due to its simplicity 
as are' most of the good things of life. 
An attractive feature is its adaptability for ad¬ 
justment to any sized party. I have used it to 
advantage with but a single companion—have 
slept comfortably in it with sixteen. 
It is a wintei camp that has stood the severest 
tests in the far-away places back of beyond, in 
‘the rare wooded areas of the sub-Arctics, where 
transportation facilities, even the commonest of 
river and trail, are lacking. 
If your outfit must be carried on your back, 
drawn by yourself on hand sled or toboggan, or 
even if you have sleigh dogs to perform the 
heavy portion of the work, weight, figured not in 
pounds but reduced to ounces, is the overwhelm¬ 
ing factor that makes or breaks the trip. 
’Tis not alone for those, though, whom duty 
or necessity sends forth across wind-swept, snow¬ 
laden wastes or into the deep, silent winter woods 
that this open camp is chosen. 
It is a camp for all red-blooded outers who 
seek their outings during the hard months of 
the year in a latitude where winter lasts from 
November to 'March, or longer, and the mercury 
in February keeps well below the zero mark— 
winter as we know it in the northern states and 
Canada. 
In early and late winter time—at the begin¬ 
ning and ending of the season of frost and snow 
—when it is neither fall nor winter, winter nor 
cities, bigger and better for the experience, and 
greet the other fellows with “I’ve found it—the 
only life! Gee! but it makes a fellow glad lie’s 
alive and has red blood in his veins!” 
Rule number one, the strict adherence to which 
will insure a great deal of comfort and save 
many stumbling steps and troublesome work, is 
to camp early. Stop while you have at least a 
half hour of daylight in reserve, no matter how 
keen you feel for pushing on to make that extra 
mile. 
The winter sun in northern latitudes has a dis¬ 
concerting way of quickly dropping below the 
western tree fringe leaving no trail of twilight in 
its wake and the careless traveller finds himself 
at once surrounded by the impenetrable darkness 
of the chilly night. 
You will stumble about on snowshoes in the 
blackness of the woods, tripped by half-buried 
stumps and wiry underbrush, endeavoring to se¬ 
lect and fell suitable trees for camp and fire. A 
sharp axe then becomes a danger and the least 
harmful accident with which you are liable to 
meet is the chopping of a snowshoe frame. 
Many a woodsman’s good axe has gashed and 
crippled him after nightfall. 
Select the spot for the camp with a view to- 
three things—little depth of snow, plenty of green 
brush, and a handy supply of firewood. The 
last two requisites are the more important for 
the first can be obtained by shovelling away the 
snow, though an undesirable extra task. 
This is necessary for if you build your fire on 
a bank or drift or where there is a depth of over 
two feet the fire soon eats its way downward 
into a trench and you quickly lose the good of it 
unless you keep building it up with fresh fuel. 
That is an extravagance, especially where the 
supply of dry timber is limited. One can usu¬ 
ally locate a spot where the snow is shallow 
by sounding with a stake or axe handle. Often¬ 
times when luck is your travelling companion 
you will find green trees bunched together with 
dry standing sticks close by and can fell them 
right onto the site selected for the camp. The 
weary musher welcomes this consideration at all 
times; much more so when the party is large 
and much brush must be cut. 
With your site decided on, shovel out an area 
that will allow just room enough for all hands 
to stretch out side by side, a foot to spare at 
the head and three at the bottom where the fire 
will be laid, the full length of the camp. 
Snowshoes make convenient shovels. If the 
night is dead calm, and there is no indication 
of what quarter the weather is coming from, 
consider the north as being to windward and 
build the shelter to shield you from a possible 
frosty air from that point of the compass. 
The trees from which the brush is lopped 
should be piled crib-fashion at the back and 
both ends to a height of four feet and the en¬ 
closed space well carpeted with the boughs. 
Bank up the snow outside of these walls and 
you will have a windproof shelter that will defy 
a “forty-knotter.” 
Now, if the chores have been wisely appor¬ 
tioned to the different members of the party — 
firewood to one, brush to another, camp-building 
to a third, and so forth, things will have run 
smoothly and your home for the night be ready 
for occupancy. There should be just room for 
your dunnage at your head, where it is handy, 
away from the fire, and serving, as well, to stop 
any bothersome chinks in the back wall. If all 
(Continued on page 1262.) 
