Woodcraft Part 1

Woodcraft.

by George W. Sears.

PREFACE

Woodcraft is dedicated to the Grand Army of "Outers," as a pocket volume of reference on woodcraft.

For brick and mortar breed filth and crime, With a pulse of evil that throbs and beats; And men are withered before their prime By the curse paved in with the lanes and streets.

And lungs are poisoned and shoulders bowed, In the smothering reek of mill and mine; And death stalks in on the struggling crowd-- But he shuns the shadow of oak and pine.

--Nessmuk

CHAPTER I Overwork And Recreation--Outing And Outers--How To Do It, And Why They Miss It

IT does not need that Herbert Spencer should cross the ocean to tell us that we are an over-worked nation; that our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's; or, "that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work," and, "it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." It is all true. But we work harder, accomplish more in a given time and last quite as long as slower races. As to the gray hair-- perhaps gray hair is better than none; and it is a fact that the average Briton becomes bald as early as the American turns gray. There is, however, a sad significance in his words when he says: "In every circle I have met men who had themselves suffered from nervous collapse due to stress of business, or named friends who had either killed themselves by overwork, or had been permanently incapacitated, or had wasted long periods in endeavors to recover health." Too true. And it is the constant strain, without let-up or relaxation, that, in nine cases out of ten, snaps the cord and ends in what the doctors call "nervous prostration"--something akin to paralysis--from which the sufferer seldom wholly recovers.

Mr. Spencer quotes that quaint old chronicler, Froissart, as saying, "The English take their pleasures sadly, after their fashion"; and thinks if he lived now, he would say of Americans, "they take their pleasures hurriedly, after their fashion." Perhaps.

It is an age of hurry and worry. Anything slower than steam is apt to "get left." Fortunes are quickly made and freely spent. Nearly all busy, hard-worked Americans have an intuitive sense of the need that exists for at least one period of rest and relaxation during each year and all--or nearly all--are willing to pay liberally, too liberally in fact, for anything that conduces to rest, recreation and sport. I am sorry to say that we mostly get swindled. As an average, the summer outer who goes to forest, lake or stream for health and sport, gets about ten cents' worth for a dollar of outlay. A majority will admit-- to themselves at least--that after a month's vacation, they return to work with an inward consciousness of being somewhat disappointed and beaten. We are free with our money when we have it. We are known throughout the civilized world for our lavishness in paying for our pleasures; but it humiliates us to know we have been beaten, and this is what the most of us know at the end of a summer vacation. To the man of millions it makes little difference. He is able to pay liberally for boats, buckboards and "body service," if he chooses to spend a summer in the North Woods. He has no need to study the questions of lightness and economy in a Forest and Stream outing. Let his guides take care of him; and unto them and the landlords he will give freely of his substance.

I do not write for him and can do him little good. But there are hundreds of thousands of practical, useful men, many of them far from being rich; mechanics, artists, writers, merchants, clerks, business men--workers, so to speak--who sorely need and well deserve a season of rest and relaxation at least once a year. To these and for these, I write.

Perhaps more than fifty years of devotion to "woodcraft" may enable me to give a few useful hints and suggestions to those whose dreams, during the close season of work, are of camp-life by flood, field and forest.

I have found that nearly all who have a real love of nature and out-of-door camp-life, spend a good deal of time and talk in planning future trips, or discussing the trips and pleasures gone by, but still dear to memory.

When the mountain streams are frozen and the Nor'land winds are out; when the winter winds are drifting the bitter sleet and snow; when winter rains are making out-of-door life unendurable; when season, weather and law combine to make it "close time" for beast, bird and man, it is well that a few congenial spirits should, at some favorite trysting place, gather around the glowing stove and exchange yarns, opinions and experiences. Perhaps no two will exactly agree on the best ground for an outing...or half a dozen other points that may be discussed. But one thing all admit. Each and every one has gone to his chosen ground with too much impedimenta, too much duffle; and nearly all have used boats at least twice as heavy as they need to have been.

The temptation to buy this or that bit of indispensable camp-kit has been too strong and we have gone to the blessed woods, handicapped with a load fit for a pack-mule. This is not how to do it.

Go light; the lighter the better, so that you have the simplest material for health, comfort and enjoyment.

Of course, if you intend to have a permanent camp and can reach it by boat or wagon, lightness is not so important, though even in that case it is well to guard against taking a lot of stuff that is likely to prove of more weight than worth--only to leave it behind when you come out.

As to clothing for the woods, a good deal of nonsense has been written about "strong, coa.r.s.e woolen clothes." You do not want coa.r.s.e woolen clothes. Fine woolen ca.s.simere of medium thickness for coat, vest and pantaloons, with no cotton lining. Color, slate gray or dead-leaf (either is good). Two soft, thick woolen shirts; two pairs of fine, but substantial, woolen drawers; two pairs of strong woolen socks or stockings; these are what you need and all you need in the way of clothing for the woods, excepting hat and boots, or gaiters. Boots are best--providing you do not let yourself be inveigled into wearing a pair of long-legged heavy boots with thick soles, as has been often advised by writers who knew no better. Heavy, long legged boots are a weary, tiresome inc.u.mbrance on a hard tramp through rough woods. Even moccasins are better. Gaiters, all sorts of high shoes, in fact, are too bothersome about fastening and unfastening. Light boots are best.

Not thin, unserviceable affairs, but light as to actual weight. The following hints will give an idea for the best footgear for the woods; let them be single soled, single backs and single fronts, except light, short foot-linings. Back of solid "country kip"; fronts of substantial French calf; heel one inch high, with steel nails; countered outside; straps narrow, of fine French calf put on "astraddle," and set down to the top of the back. The out-sole stout, Spanish oak and pegged rather than sewed, although either is good. They will weigh considerably less than half as much as the clumsy, costly boots usually recommended for the woods; and the added comfort must be tested to be understood.

The hat should be fine, soft felt with moderately low crown and wide brim; color to match the clothing.

The proper covering for head and feet is no slight affair and will be found worth some attention. Be careful that the boots are not too tight, or the hat too loose. The above rig will give the tourist one shirt, one pair of drawers and a pair of socks to carry as extra clothing. A soft, warm blanket-bag, open at the ends and just long enough to cover the sleeper, with an oblong square of waterproofed cotton cloth 6x8 feet, will give warmth and shelter by night and will weigh together five or six pounds. This, with the extra clothing, will make about eight pounds of dry goods to pack over carries, which is enough. Probably, also, it will be found little enough for comfort.

During a canoe cruise across the Northern Wilderness in the late summer, I met many parties at different points in the woods and the amount of unnecessary duffle with which they enc.u.mbered themselves was simply appalling. Why a shrewd business man, who goes through with a guide and makes a forest hotel his camping ground nearly every night, should handicap himself with a five-peck pack basket full of gray woolen and gum blankets, extra clothing, pots, pans and kettles, with a 9 pound 10-bore and two rods--yes, and an extra pair of heavy boots hanging astride of the gun-well, it is one of the things I shall never understand. My own load, including canoe, extra clothing, blanket-bag, two days' rations, pocket-axe, rod and knapsack, never exceeded 26 pounds; and I went prepared to camp out any and every night.

People who contemplate an outing in the woods are pretty apt to commence preparations a long way ahead and to pick up many trifling articles that suggest themselves as useful and handy in camp; all well enough in their way, but making at least a too heavy load. It is better to commence by studying to ascertain just how light one can go through without especial discomfort. A good plan is to think over the trip during leisure hours and make out a list of indispensable articles, securing them beforehand and have them stowed in handy fashion, so that nothing needful may be missing just when and where it cannot be procured. The list will be longer than one would think, but need not be c.u.mbersome or heavy. As I am usually credited with making a cruise or a long woods tramp with exceptionally light duffle, I will give a list of the articles I take along--going on foot over carries or through the woods.

CHAPTER II Knapsack, Hatchet, Knives, Tinware, Fishing Tackle, Rods, Ditty-bag

THE clothing, blanket-bag and shelter-cloth are all that need be described in that line. The next articles that I look after are knapsack (or pack basket), rod with reel, lines, flies, hooks and all my fishing gear, pocket-axe, knives and tinware. Firstly, the knapsack; as you are apt to carry it a great many miles, it is well to have it right and easy-fitting at the start. Don't be induced to carry a pack basket. I am aware that it is in high favor all through the Northern Wilderness and is also much used in other localities where guides and sportsmen most do congregate. But I do not like it. I admit that it will carry a loaf of bread, with tea, sugar, etc., without jamming; that bottles, crockery and other fragile duffle is safer from breakage than in an oil-cloth knapsack. But it is by no means waterproof in a rain or a splashing head sea, is more than twice as heavy--always growing heavier as it gets wetter--and I had rather have bread, tea, sugar, etc., a little jammed than water-soaked. Also, it may be remarked that man is a vertebrate animal and ought to respect his backbone. The loaded pack basket on a heavy carry never fails to get in on the most vulnerable k.n.o.b of the human vertebrae. The knapsack sits easy and does not chafe. The one shown in the engraving is of good form; and the original--which I have carried for years--is satisfactory in every respect. It holds over half a bushel, carries blanket-bag, shelter-tent, hatchet, ditty-bag, tinware, fishing tackle, clothes and two days' rations. It weighs, empty, just twelve ounces.

The hatchet and knives shown in the engraving will be found to fill the bill satisfactorily so far as cutlery may be required. Each is good and useful of its kind, the hatchet especially, being the best model I have ever found for a "double-barreled" pocket-axe.

And just here let me digress for a little chat on the indispensable hatchet; for it is the most difficult piece of camp kit to obtain in perfection of which I have any knowledge. Before I was a dozen years old I came to realize that a light hatchet was a sine qua non in woodcraft and I also found it a most difficult thing to get. I tried shingling hatchets, lathing hatchets and the small hatchets to be found in country hardware stores, but none of them were satisfactory. I had quite a number made by blacksmiths who professed skill in making edged tools and these were the worst of all, being like nothing on the earth or under it--murderous-looking, clumsy and all too heavy, with no balance or proportion. I had hunted twelve years before I caught up with the pocket-axe I was looking for. It was made in Rochester, by a surgical instrument maker named Bushnell. It cost time and money to get it. I worked one rainy Sat.u.r.day fashioning the pattern in wood. Spoiled a day going to Rochester, waited a day for the blade, paid $3.00 for it and lost a day coming home. Boat fare $1.00 and expenses $2.00, besides three days lost time, with another rainy Sunday for making leather sheath and hickory handle.

My witty friends, always willing to help me out in figuring the cost of my hunting and fishing gear, made the following business-like estimate, which they placed where I would be certain to see it the first thing in the morning. Premising that of the five who a.s.sisted in that little joke, all stronger, bigger fellows than myself, four have gone "where they never see the sun," I will copy the statement as it stands today, on paper yellow with age. For I have kept it over forty years.

Then they raised a horse laugh and the cost of that hatchet became a standing joke and a slur on my "business ability." What aggravated me most was, that the rascals were not so far out in their calculation.

And was I so far wrong? That hatchet was my favorite for nearly thirty years. It has been "upset" twice by skilled workmen; and, if my friend Bero has not lost it, is still in service.

Would I have gone without it any year for one or two dollars? But I prefer the double blade. I want one thick, stunt edge for knots, deers'

bones, etc. and a fine, keen edge for cutting clear timber.

A word as to knife, or knives. These are of prime necessity and should be of the best, both as to shape and temper. The "bowies" and "hunting knives" usually kept on sale, are thick, clumsy affairs, with a sort of ridge along the middle of the blade, murderous-looking, but of little use; rather fitted to adorn a dime novel or the belt of "Billy the Kid," than the outfit of the hunter. The one shown in the cut is thin in the blade and handy for skinning, cutting meat, or eating with. The strong double-bladed pocket knife is the best model I have yet found and, in connection with the sheath knife, is all sufficient for camp use. It is not necessary to take table cutlery into the woods. A good fork may be improvised from a beech or birch stick; and the half of a fresh-water mussel sh.e.l.l, with a split stick by way of handle, makes an excellent spoon.

My entire outfit for cooking and eating dishes comprises five pieces of tinware. This is when stopping in a permanent camp. When cruising and tramping, I take just two pieces in the knapsack.

I get a skillful tinsmith to make one dish as follows: Six inches on bottom, 6 3/4 inches on top, side 2 inches high. The bottom is of the heaviest tin procurable, the sides of lighter tin and seamed to be watertight without solder. The top simply turned, without wire. The second dish to be made the same, but small enough to nest in the first and also to fit into it when inverted as a cover. Two other dishes made from common pressed tinware, with the tops cut off and turned, also without wire. They are fitted so that they all nest, taking no more room than the largest dish alone and each of the three smaller dishes makes a perfect cover for the next larger. The other piece is a tin camp-kettle, also of the heaviest tin and seamed watertight. It holds two quarts and the other dishes nest in it perfectly, so that when packed the whole takes just as much room as the kettle alone. I should mention that the strong ears are set below the rim of the kettle and the bale falls outside, so, as none of the dishes have any handle, there are no aggravating "stickouts" to wear and abrade. The snug affair weighs, all told, two pounds. I have met parties in the North Woods whose one frying pan weighed more--with its handle three feet long. However did they get through the brush with such a culinary terror?

It is only when I go into a very accessible camp that I take so much as five pieces of tinware along. I once made a ten days' tramp through an unbroken wilderness on foot and all the dish I took was a ten-cent tin; it was enough. I believe I will tell the story of that tramp before I get through. For I saw more game in the ten days than I ever saw before or since in a season; and I am told that the whole region is now a thrifty farming country, with the deer nearly all gone. They were plenty enough thirty-nine years ago this very month.

I feel more diffidence in speaking of rods than of any other matter connected with outdoor sports. The number and variety of rods and makers; the enthusiasm of trout and fly "cranks"; the fact that angling does not take precedence of all other sports with me, with the humiliating confession that I am not above bucktail spinners, worms and sinkers, minnow tails and white grubs--this and these constrain me to be brief.

But, as I have been a fisher all my life, from my pinhook days to the present time; as I have run the list pretty well up, from brook minnows to 100 pound albacores, I may be pardoned for a few remarks on the rod and the use thereof.

A rod may be a very high-toned, high-priced aesthetic plaything, costing $50 to $75, or it may be a rod. A serviceable and splendidly balanced rod can be obtained from first cla.s.s makers for less money. By all means let the man of money indulge his fancy for the most costly rod that can be procured. He might do worse. A practical every day sportsman whose income is limited will find that a more modest product will drop his flies on the water quite as attractively to Salmo fontinalis. My little 8 1/2 foot, 4 1/2 ounce split bamboo which the editor of Forest and Stream had made for me cost $10.00. I have given it hard usage and at times large trout have tested it severely, but it has never failed me. The dimensions of my second rod are 9 1/2 feet long and 5 ounces in weight. This rod will handle the bucktail spinners which I use for trout and ba.s.s, when other things have failed. I used a rod of this description for several summers both in Adirondack and western waters. It had a hand-made reel seat, agate first guide, was satisfactory in every respect and I could see in balance, action and appearance no superiority in a rod costing $25.00, which one of my friends sported. Charles Dudley Warner, who writes charmingly of woods life, has the following in regard to trout fishing, which is so neatly humorous that it will bear repeating:

"It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method. The uncultivated trout in unfrequented waters prefers the bait; and the rural people, whose sole object in going a-fishing appears to be to catch fish, indulge them in their primitive state for the worm. No sportsman, however, will use anything but a fly except he happens to be alone." Speaking of rods, he says:

"The rod is a bamboo weighing seven ounces, which has to be spliced with a winding of silk thread every time it is used. This is a tedious process; but, by fastening the joints in this way, a uniform spring is secured in the rod. No one devoted to high art would think of using a socket joint."

One summer during a seven weeks' tour in the Northern Wilderness, my only rod was a 7 1/2 foot Henshall. It came to hand with two bait-tips only; but I added a fly-tip and it made an excellent "general fishing rod." With it I could handle a large ba.s.s or pickerel; it was a capital bait-rod for brook trout; as fly-rod it has pleased me well enough. It is likely to go with me again. For reel casting, the 5 1/2 foot rod is handier. But it is not yet decided which is best and I leave every man his own opinion. Only, I think one rod enough, but have always had more.

And don't neglect to take what sailors call a "ditty-bag." This may be a little sack of chamois leather about 4 inches wide by 6 inches in length. Mine is before me as I write. Emptying the contents, I find it inventories as follows: A dozen hooks, running in size from small minnow hooks to large Limericks; four lines of six yards each, varying from the finest to a size sufficient for a ten-pound fish; three darning needles and a few common sewing needles; a dozen b.u.t.tons; sewing silk; thread and a small ball of strong yarn for darning socks; sticking salve; a bit of shoemaker's wax; beeswax; sinkers and a very fine file for sharpening hooks. The ditty-bag weighs, with contents, 2 1/2 ounces; and it goes in a small buckskin bullet pouch, which I wear almost as constantly as my hat. The pouch has a sheath strongly sewed on the back side of it, where the light hunting knife is always at hand, and it also carries a two-ounce vial of fly medicine, a vial of "pain killer," and two or three gangs of hooks on bra.s.s wire snells--of which, more in another place. I can always go down into that pouch for a waterproof match safe, strings, compa.s.s, bits of linen and scarlet flannel (for frogging), copper tacks and other light duffle. It is about as handy a piece of woods-kit as I carry.

I hope no aesthetic devotee of the fly-rod will lay down the book in disgust when I confess to a weakness for frogging. I admit that it is not high-toned sport; and yet I have got a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt out of it. The persistence with which a large batrachian will snap at a bit of red flannel after being several times hooked on the same lure and the comical way in which he will scuttle off with a quick succession of short jumps after each release; the cheerful manner in which, after each bout, he will tune up his deep, ba.s.s pipe--ready for another greedy snap at an ibis fly or red rag is rather funny. And his hind legs, rolled in meal and nicely browned, are preferable to trout or venison.

CHAPTER III Getting Lost--Camping Out--Roughing It Or Smoothing It--Insects--Camps, And How To Make Them

WITH a large majority of prospective tourists and outers, "camping out" is a leading factor in the summer vacation. And during the long winter months they are p.r.o.ne to collect in little knots and talk much of camps, fishing, hunting and "roughing it." The last phrase is very popular and always cropping out in the talks on matters pertaining to a vacation in the woods. I dislike the phrase. We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home; in towns and cities; in shops, offices, stores, banks anywhere that we may be placed--with the necessity always present of being on time and up to our work; of providing for the dependent ones; of keeping up, catching up, or getting left. "Alas for the lifelong battle, whose bravest slogan is bread."

As for the few fortunate ones who have no call to take a hand in any strife or struggle, who not only have all the time there is, but a great deal that they cannot dispose of with any satisfaction to themselves or anybody else--I am not writing for them; but only to those of the world's workers who go, or would like to go, every summer to the woods. And to these I would say, don't rough it; make it as smooth, as restful and pleasurable as you can.

To this end you need pleasant days and peaceful nights. You cannot afford to be tormented and poisoned by insects, nor kept awake at night by cold and damp, nor to exhaust your strength by hard tramps and heavy loads. Take it easy and always keep cool. Nine men out of ten, on finding themselves lost in the woods, fly into a panic and quarrel with the compa.s.s. Never do that. The compa.s.s is always right, or nearly so. It is not many years since an able-bodied man--sportsman of course--lost his way in the North Woods and took fright, as might be expected. He was well armed and well found for a week in the woods.

What ought to have been only an interesting adventure, became a tragedy. He tore through thickets and swamps in his senseless panic, until he dropped and died through fright, hunger and exhaustion.