348 
FOREST AND STREAM 
AUGUST, 1917 
By F. V. WILLIAMS 
Illustraten by the Author. 
E had been on a long hike and be¬ 
fore we started my partner and I 
were both sure we knew just how 
to reach the camp. The guide had 
brought us out to get an extra load of bad¬ 
ly needed supplies. The accommodation 
train (the only means of transportation to 
this district) was late and as the guide was 
badly needed back at the camp, we let him 
go on ahead with two others of our party 
more “green” than ourselves.—We’d be all 
right; the trail was easy to find; etc.—So 
he departed. 
W-e- 1 - 1 , the train came lurching along 
over the uneven roadbed two hours late. 
We got our stuff and struck out. 
That was six hours ago and now, with 
packs that weighed up at forty pounds each 
but seemed to weigh half a ton strapped 
on our shoulders, we had to look at each 
other’s perspiring faces and confess that 
we were lost. Yes, sir; and it was begin¬ 
ning to rain. We ran back, in our minds, 
to a place where the trail branched. We 
had taken the wrong branch, of course, 
not having paid attention enough to land¬ 
marks on the way out. 
We decided to go ahead, as there were 
but a couple of hours of daylight left and 
if we did not strike camp in that time we’d 
have to make the best of it until the next 
day. A pleasant prospect, truly! But we 
were too far from the station to turn back, 
so we resigned ourselves to going ahead;— 
and then of a sudden the trail, which led 
along the foot of a long cliff, brought us to 
a bit of opening by a small lake. There 
ahead of us was an old log cabin, with 
door ajar to bid us welcome. 
“The shelter”! exclaimed my partner. 
And a welcome one it proved to be. For 
it not only rained that night; it poured. 
But that troubled us not a minute; we 
were dry and warm. So after stowing 
away a hearty supper, before we turned in 
for the “sleeps” we discussed shelters. 
These that follow were among the ideas 
we exchanged, and they should prove use¬ 
ful to trampers not so fortunate as we 
were that night. 
Figure i is a canoe shelter. This was 
tried out at first by using an old tarpaulin 
and simply laying it over the whole side of 
the canoe, but the wind got under it and 
it was hard to keep in place. 
The next trip we had along a piece of 
light canvas with eyelets on both edges. It 
served a double purpose, for we covered 
our supplies and duffle in the canoe with it 
en route. Then when we made camp we 
simply turned the canoe over and fastened 
the canvas to one gunwale by slipping the 
eyelets over small brass hooks secured into 
the under side of it for that purpose. 
After thus fastening the canvas to the 
canoe we drove three (we tried two, but 
they did not work as well as three) 
crotched stakes the width of the canvas— 
about 32 inches—from the front of our 
“lean-over.” Through these a cord was 
stretched to pegs driven into the ground. 
The ends were left ’til the last, when they 
were also pegged out. 
With our excess baggage stowed away 
in back of us in the canoe, and blankets 
spread under the canvas, we could laugh 
at rain squalls. And it was mighty com¬ 
fortable on a frosty night, with the fire 
out in front reflecting its heat against the 
upturned canoe bottom. One other ad¬ 
vantage of this method: if you have your 
Figure 2: The canoe shelter, with brush for a wind-break at the back 
Figure 1: The canvas, cut and eyed to shape, snaps over hooks under the gunwale 
