Why Do You Go Into Camp? 
Butte, Mont., Aug. 2 .—Editor Forest and 
ream: Camping out to-day is very different 
Dm what it was in old times. Then, the man 
10 was journeying through an unknown coun- 
r usually went because he was obliged to, and 
ten by himself, or with only one or two com¬ 
mons. He traveled light, taking with him as 
; tie as possible, and so far as he could, living 
1 the resources of the country, for game and 
h were then often plenty. He did his own 
)rk, and did it cheerfully, and if he met with 
faculties, delays and discomforts, he set his 
;th and endured or overcame, and finally in 
e language of the day, he “got there.” If the 
:n of thirty, forty and fifty years ago did this, 
11 more did those do it of a still earlier day. 
ike the early men of the plains and of the 
)untains, those hardy trappers of the beaver 
d fighters of Indians, of whom William T. 
imilton was perhaps the last. They faced 
ery danger and conquered every difficulty. If 
ey w r anted to go to a place, they went there; 
aether they had to walk or ride or swim, or 
. Men of that kind, regarded very little the 
estion of whether they were comfortable or 
comfortable in their eating or their sleeping, 
they had food enough to keep them going, 
d sleep enough so that they would awake if a 
rse snorted, or stopped feeding and stood 
! )king, or if the imitation howl of wolf or 
, / of owl sounded near camp, they were satis- 
d. The qualities possessed by those men are 
! 2 qualities of the early Americans, the quali- 
! s that have made this country what it is. 
J :ry likely most Americans still possess those 
alities, but it may be doubted whether the 
nericans who live in the big cities now pos- 
1 is them to any great extent. These city men 
|? too fond of their ease and comfort; they 
nt to have things done for them; they want 
have their beds made soft, their paths 
1 iooth, their way through life easy, 
fn old times and in certain sections of the 
j untry the man who wanted to have things 
ne for him had no place. It is true that, 
' ;n in those old times, one could go to Can- 
a and in long settled regions could hire the 
j vices of French Canadians and English or 
I otch Canadians who had been accustomed to 
I ing out with Englishmen, army or navy 
j icers, or noblemen who had come to Canada 
' sport. Those people would do what they 
re told. They were accustomed to taking 
; fers. But if by chance you went out into 
i: newly settled Western country, or into the 
untry that was not settled at all, and hired 
nan under the impression that he was to be 
ir servant, you were likely soon to be rudely 
; abused of this impression. The man might 
j see to guide you or to help you pack, or even 
j- cook for you for wages, but as for perform- 
r any personal service, anything which he re- 
gded as menial, he would no more think of 
<ng this for you that he would think of asking 
u to do it for him. 
1 
I very well recall a story told of a certain 
French baron, who, making a trip to the Rocky 
Mountains for big game, took with him two or 
three men from eastern Canada, and hired two 
or three other men and horses when he reached 
his hunting ground. The little baron one even¬ 
ing ordered one of the local men, a halfbreed, 
to grease his boots, and the halfbreed vgry 
naturally explained to him with some force that 
the baron could grease his own boots, if he 
wished to. The baron not being accustomed to 
have his directions disregarded, promptly dis¬ 
charged the halfbreed, who left the camp during 
the night with two or three of the horses. As 
the story was told, a well-known Canadian, 
whose name I have seen signed to an article in 
Forest and Stream within the last few months, 
followed the halfbreed, and overtaking him with 
the horses in his possession, killed him. 
This seems a long way from what I was talk¬ 
ing about, but it is intended to illustrate the 
point that in those early days the man who 
went camping in the Western country did his 
own work, if his work was done. If a pilgrim 
and an old-timer by any chance went out to¬ 
gether, the “pilgrim,” if he had any “savy” at 
all, pitched in and strove as best he might to 
do the hardest, roughest work, to gather wood, 
pack water, collect buffalo chips, and picket the 
horses. If he acted in this way, his efforts were 
appreciated by the old-timer, who was then 
likely to take pains to help the younger man by 
teaching him how things ought to be done, both 
for ease in the doing and the proper results after 
they had been done. The “pilgrim” who had 
intelligence enough to at once adapt himself to 
his new surroundings soon acquired an amount 
of plains and mountain lore which transformed 
him from a pilgrim into a more or less 
efficient person, who required only experience 
to become a good prairie or mountain man. 
Nowadays, however, things are quite different. 
Well-to-do young men, when they start out for 
trips into the mountains, hire all the men and 
pack horses that are needed; guides, cooks, 
horse wranglers and personal servants abound. 
The pack horses are loaded with tables, chairs, 
stoves, bathtubs, mattresses, and other com¬ 
forts of home. The guides guide, the packers 
pack, the cooks cook, and the horse wranglers 
wrangle. The employers lie in the shade. The 
hunters or sportsmen—so-called—are personally 
conducted from point to point, and are taken 
up to game which—to their great satisfaction—- 
they sometimes kill. The men they hire speak 
of them as “dudes” or “sports.” 
People who travel in this way of course need 
no instruction in camping, yet scattered all over 
the country there must be a multitude of people 
who w’ould like from time to time to get away 
from their everyday surroundings, from the 
comforts of home, from their ordinary associ¬ 
ates, and to get a little rest and let down, so 
that their too greatly strained minds and bodies 
may adjust themselves once more. 
I recall a man who earns his bread in a 
small Eastern State. Elis avocation is not a 
lucrative one, and he has very little money to 
throw away. Some of what he has, however, 
he once invested in three or four acres of worth¬ 
less land up in Connecticut, the land growing 
a few trees and having on it a good spring. A 
few more dollars he put into lumber, nails and 
a few odds and ends, and on his land he built 
himself a board shanty, to which now for many 
years he has resorted during his vacation time, 
and where he lives as happy as a king, and 
vastly more independent. 
Something like this is within the power of 
almost each one of us. If we cannot buy a little 
piece of land, and build on it a home of our 
own, we can at least get from some landowner 
permission to camp on his land, though of 
course he must be convinced that the one who 
asks this permission will not set the woods afire, 
cut down valuable trees or in any way make a 
nuisance of himself. Having received permis¬ 
sion to camp, few things more are needed, ex¬ 
cept bedding. It is an easy matter to build a 
shelter that will keep off the summer weather. 
A few rough boards, one of the ends lying on 
the ground, the other resting on a cross piece 
either stretching between two trees, or between 
two crotched sticks driven in the ground, will in 
summer weather at any low altitude be ample 
protection. If such a shelter is built against a 
hillside, the front part of it will be high enough 
for an ordinary man to stand up in. 
If your shelter is in the woods, leaves enough 
can very likely be brought together to make a 
comfortable mattress on which to spread your 
blankets. If leaves cannot be found, it may be 
that the owner of the land where you camp will 
let you have a couple of armfuls of hay, or 
if not, you can buy enough hay to make a good 
bed for two, for a very few cents. You now 
have your house and furniture, and all that you 
need besides is food and something to cook it 
in. If you are alone, a frying-pan, a good-sized 
tin plate, a quart cup, a tin cup and a two-quart 
bucket, a knife, fork and spoon will' be all- 
sufficient for your needs. In the frying-pan you 
can cook food and bake your bread; in the camp 
kettle you can make stews and heat the water 
to wash your dishes; in the quart cup you can 
boil your coffee, and with your tin plate and 
your frying-pan you can make a useful oven. 
If this assortment does not satisfy you, you 
must be hard to please. 
Camping is good fun, but only if one has an 
object in view. Personally I should be as com¬ 
fortable in camp as in prison, unless I were 
there for some specific purpose—to hunt, to fish, 
to climb mountains, to collect plants, to study 
some form of life, or to do some other par¬ 
ticular thing which at the time seemed im¬ 
portant. Most of us must have some occupa¬ 
tion to get any good out of life. I have spent 
many years.of my life in camp, but usually it 
was on the march, while going to some place 
where I had a definite w’ork to do and then 
while returning from this place. 
What is your object in going into camp? 
Montana. 
