THE CANOE;
ITS SELECTION, CARE AND USE
CHAPTER XI
PACKING; VARIOUS METHODS; THEIR ADAPTABILITY
PACKING which here means the receptacles for various articles taken on a journey and the method of carrying the same, is one of the most widely discussed problems of the canoeman. Each district has its general method, and each individual has his variations and adaptations of that method, or a combination of several.
The original and perhaps most common method of packing in North America is with the head strap, or tump line. Some enthusiastic delvers have discovered that this is of Asiatic origin. It is so simple and adaptable, however, that it can be understood how its origin may have been spontaneous wherever people found it necessary to transport burdens.
Because the method, used by the Indian and adopted by the French voyageur and Hudson's Bay Company packer, is the most universal, experts in wilderness travel have given it not only first place but declare there is no other adequate method. Their declarations are always predicated on the fact that it is the method universally used by the Hudson's Bay Company packers.
However, there are few canoeists whose journeys are similar to those of the fur packers. The fur brigade takes out many bundles of pelts, each package weighing about eighty pounds. In the large canoes used there may be twenty or more such packages. It would be out of the question to have a packing contrivance attached to each. So the canoeman attaches his tump line to a bale or two of fur, carries it across, unties the tump, and returns for another load.
If a canoeing party is to take a long trip into the wilderness, and carry supplies for many weeks, the tump line is an excellent contrivance for packing. But where the journey is to be for only two or three weeks, the problems of the exploring expedition or the fur brigade are absent, and it does not necessarily follow that the tump line is still the best or only means of portaging.
There is one fundamental thing in the matter of packing that should be first understood. Any method means hard work and is productive of much torture for the beginner. Muscles become hardened and accustomed to the strain in time, but packing is always hard work. Whatever ease may be attained is mental rather than physical. The stronger the muscles become, the bigger the load a man will carry that the number of trips may be lessened. He can look upon a portage with equanimity only after he has reached that state of mind where he can see the carry as an inevitable part of the day's work, something that can be made easier only as the time devoted to it is lessened.
Tump line or pack harness, pack basket or pack sack, each will torture at first, each affords hard work. And for the short trip canoeist, the subject resolves itself more into a question of convenience and adaptability than anything else. To determine this it is better first to describe the various methods.
The tump line may be used especially well with the small, waterproof duffle bags commonly taken into the wilderness. The tump line, which consists of a broad piece of leather with two long thongs of leather fastened at each end by sewing or buckles, may be attached to one or more duffle bags. These are then lifted to the back and the broad band placed across the top of the forehead, most of it above the hair line. The thongs should not be so long that the load comes below the hips, nor so short it rests high on the back. With this load adjusted the packer can toss additional duffle bags on top, letting them rest against the taut thongs, his shoulders, and the back of his head.
With a pack cloth the two thongs of the tump line are stretched along either side about a foot from the edges and the edges turned over them. The duffle is piled in a compact heap in the center of the cloth. Sharp or hard articles should not touch the cloth. The sides are folded over the duffle and the thongs pulled tightly, as are puckering strings, and tied around the bundle. A blanket may be used in place of a pack cloth.
The pack harness generally consists of shoulder straps and a head strap with thongs attached for tying the contrivance to any sort or size of bundle. One style of pack harness has a long bag attached with extra folds of duck to hold additional duffle.
The pack basket is a receptacle woven from: oak splits or other wood and having two shoulder straps attached. Sometimes it is covered with waterproofed duck. Unlike most packing contrivances, its capacity is unalterable. Neither is its rigid shape adaptable for canoes.
The packsack, a Minnesota product, is becoming more widely known and used each year. Until a few years ago it was unknown except in Minnesota and western Ontario. Like the pack harness in the eastern States, the pack basket in the eastern mountains, and the tump line in Canada, it is a distinctively local contrivance, but one which, for the short canoe trip, offers the best solution of the packing problem.
The packsack is a large bag of heavy duck with two shoulder straps and a head strap attached. A large flap covers the top of the bag and is strapped down. The bag is carried by the shoulder straps and the head strap across the forehead. Its size and its construction permit any load up to its maximum capacity, and no adjustment of straps is necessary with small or large load.
Packsacks are made by several firms in Minnesota and Ontario, and there are as many degrees of efficiency. The ideal packsack should be made of heavy, waterproofed duck with leather shoulder and head straps. The head strap should be attached far down on the side of the bag and the shoulder straps far enough up so that the load does not hang away from the back. Sizes vary from a small bag for a light load to the blanket sack, which will carry half a dozen blankets.
Still another packing contrivance used by many canoeists is the lunch box of wood, fiber, or light sheet iron. In this, dishes and the lunch food are packed, the box being carried by a tump line or placed on the top of a pack. These add ten to twenty pounds to the weight and are awkward and inconvenient in the canoe or on a portage.
In packing with a tump line the limit of the load is the packer's strength and experience. With the pack harness it is difficult to handle much more than seventy-five pounds, although other packs may be placed on top, once the pack is in place. With the pack basket there is a rigid limit to what may be carried. The packsack's limit in food is about 125 pounds.
When packsacks are used one or two lighter packs may be carried on top of the first pack. There is no doubt but that the adaptability of the tump line makes it possible to carry the heaviest loads with such a contrivance, provided the packer was born with a tump line across his forehead. But the canoeist seldom attempts more than 125 to 150 pounds, and such a burden may be carried with the packsack as well as with the tump line, better, if the packer be new to the game.
The packing question then resolves itself into what is the most convenient for any particular trip, provided the packer is new to any of the above contrivances. A man who has always used a packsack will have great difficulty in using a tump line.
"It's not what's the best rig, it's what a man's used to," is the way a guide summed up the question.
In a canoe trip in the wilderness of two or three weeks the complete outfit, including food, for two men may be carried in two large packsacks. With the exception of a rifle or rod case, everything, including the axe, will go into the two sacks.
On such a trip four of the small duffle bags and a pack cloth are necessary to transport the same equipment. The same is true of the pack harness or the tump line used only with pack cloths or blankets.
If many portages are to be made, the question of loading and unloading is exceedingly simple with packsacks. At the portage the two packs are lifted from the canoe, and the canoe is empty. If one man takes a forty pound pack and the canoe, the other can take a 125-pound pack. Each lifts his burden to his shoulders and starts. The paddles and rod cases are in the canoe. The man with the heavy pack takes the rifle. Except for a possible sourdough pail, there are no loose objects to be tied to packs or carried in the hands. There is no tying or untying. At the end of the portage the canoe is placed in the water, the two packs dropped in, and the canoeists are off.
With the tump line there is the inevitable tying of the packing contrivance and the adjustment of loads at one end of the portage and the untying and loading of six packs in stead of two at the other end. To be sure, the duffle bags to which the tump line is attached may be placed in the canoe without untying the straps. But, if all the duffle bags are tied, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to ballast the canoe properly with so large and cumbersome a bundle.
More time is lost on canoe journeys in loading and unloading at portages than in any other way. Where many portages are to be made in a day, hours may be wasted in gathering the equipment together at each portage. With packsacks there is nothing to do but lift out the pack and place it on the back.
Further, a canoe may be carried with a light packsack. When two men are making a journey this means only one trip across a portage. If the portage is a mile long, each man walks a mile instead of one or both making a return trip and walking three miles. With a tump line it is not possible to carry a canoe and a pack.
Packing duffle in the bags is another important feature of the subject. The large, open mouthed packsack is easily packed, and it is large enough to take anything in camp. There are no small bundles or articles to clutter up the canoe or burden the hands on the portage. The grub sack is set up beside the fire, and, if it is properly packed, dishes and food for the noonday meal are on top and ready at hand. The bag does not have to be unpacked and then packed again.
When a long journey, where supplies are to be carried for two or three months, is to be made, the subject of packing differs. Tents, blankets, and personal duffle carried in packsacks may be easily and quickly taken out each night and repacked in the morning. A week's supply of food and the dishes go in another packsack. But the surplus of food is carried better in the small, waterproofed duffle bags, which may be carried with a tump line or on top of the packsacks. The packsack, with its large mouth, cannot be made watertight, though it will shed rain all day in the canoe or on the trail. But the duffle bag excludes ° dampness, thereby preserving the food and preventing an increase in weight.
As the length of the trip, the number of men, or women, in the party, the presence or absence of guides, varies, the adaptability of the various contrivances differs. If you are going into a new country and will use a guide, learn what method he employs. If he is a packsack man, and you have provided only tump lines, your troubles will begin at the first portage. If you are new to the packing game you will find the packsack most readily adaptable. With both shoulder and head straps, you can distribute the load and carry more comfortably. With any outfit, remember that it is going to hurt, and that all you can do is to stand it until muscles and philosophy have become adjusted.
CHAPTER XII
BEDS AND BEDDING
ASS each form of out-of-door activity has its special equipment, the canoe has one all its own. The man who travels into the wilderness by pack train, flat boat, auto, wagon, or launch has only the capacity of his vehicle or craft to consider. The man who travels by canoe must consider the capacity of his own back as well as that of his craft, while the number of portages and average daily run necessary to cover a given route in a given time are deciding factors in a large part of the equipment.
The man who travels alone on foot, or with only a saddle horse, must consider weight and space more than any other traveler in the wilderness. Next comes the canoeman, for, while he may carry half a ton easily in the canoe, he cannot carry his canoe and that same half a ton over portages and make progress or get any particular pleasure out of his trip.
The man who takes a trip down the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, or any of the innumerable smaller rivers in the United States or in northern Wisconsin, for instance, where lake after lake may be traversed without a portage can stock up with all the pet paraphernalia that long winter evenings have evolved. If he should strike a power dam, an express wagon will take everything around for a dollar or two.
But the man who goes into the north country, either in northern Minnesota, Maine, or any of that infinite stretch of canoe land in Canada, whether it be for two weeks or two months, must consider carefully everything he takes. It is a subject upon which volumes and countless articles have been written, although for the enthusiastic voyageur the subject never grows old. It is called "going light but right," a phrase so elastic that really it is worthless as a descriptive title. One man may go "light" and, so far as he is concerned, ''right.'' But another would find himself deprived of things he considers necessities if he had the same outfit. One man is perfectly willing to make two or three trips on each portage to transport that which he considers essential to his happiness, while another gladly goes without things that he and his companions may "clean up" in one trip across each carry.
"Light but right," despite the manner in which it has been dinned into the ears of the outdoor man, cannot be a matter of hard and fast rule but of individual choice, taste, and degree of experience. In fact, so variable is this much sought perfection in equipment that it seldom remains the same, even with the individual. The first time out a man overburdens himself, and the second year he flies to the other extreme. The third time he is more rational and becomes a crank on equipment. He weighs and measures and changes things each year until he has an efficient outfit. Then he begins to want more comforts, and the weight increases. If he meets a man with the identical equipment he himself had five years before, he jeers at it.
Since hard and fast rules cannot hold against individual beliefs and wishes, the subject can be approached properly only from the bottom. The fundamental principles, the deciding factors, only can be stated authoritatively. The individual will build upon them to suit himself. He alone can decide what is essential to his comfort and to just what ex tent he is willing to burden himself that he may have it. Some men seem to take actual pleasure in depriving themselves, though in reality their pleasure comes afterward, when they relate how little they carried.
These things are essential to anyone on a canoe trip: Food, cooking utensils, shelter, bedding, and clothing.
These things are essential if daily journeys are to be made: Food that will quickly rebuild tissues exhausted by long hours at the paddle and yet which may be cooked quickly and easily; cooking utensils which are light, compact, durable, efficient, and of sufficient variety to permit changes in menu; a shelter which is light, just large enough to protect men and equipment, and can be easily and quickly erected; bedding that is warm but light and requires little or no care; clothing that protects from cold, sun, flies, and rain, all in one, so that a complete change is not necessary.
You can build up a carload on that, or you can fill one packsack and yet meet every requirement. You are the one to be suited, the one to carry the equipment. You have only yourself to please, only yourself to blame.
Manufacturers and individuals have devised infinite pieces of equipment to meet the needs enumerated above. In this and succeeding chapters the questions of bedding, tents, clothing, etc., will be considered. Those articles which have been proven most efficient will be described. Any opinions stated are based upon a somewhat varied experience and upon observation of equipment of nearly every type of wilderness traveler, from the millionaire with an expensive outfit to the timber cruiser or prospector who has spent his life in tents and canoes.
The nature of the bed must depend largely upon the nature of the trip. Where there are no portages, a light mattress or inflatable air mattress may be carried, while as many quilts and blankets may be taken as there is room for. Only remember that a cotton quilt will absorb moisture, is hard to dry, and becomes very cold and clammy.
But on a trip where there are many portages the bed must be light, although some canoeists insist on taking a sleeping bag. These contrivances weigh from sixteen to thirty pounds and have other objections. Some combine blankets, or quilts, a waterproofed covering, and an air mattress. A man may burden himself with these things and believe he is justified in so doing, but experienced woodsmen never use a sleeping bag, or, at least, the contrivances usually placed on the market. The objections are these: They are too heavy for the comfort obtained, the waterproofed covering keeps all the moisture from the body within the bag, and the blankets become cold and damp or must be dried every day, and there is no benefit in using a waterproofed bag when sleeping in a tent. To sleep without a tent in mosquito season is torture.
The experienced woodsman uses a single blanket or a sleeping bag without a waterproofed covering. Such sleeping bags, made of llama wool or camel's hair, afford the maximum warmth for the minimum weight. A sheet of tanalite or good waterproofed cotton should be placed under such a bag to prevent dampness from reaching the sleeper from below.
A mining engineer who has been in every part of Canada has chosen such a contrivance after many years of experimenting. The entire outfit weighs only three and one-half pounds. It is sufficiently warm for the summer and early fall. Moisture from the body escapes readily, leaving the bag dry. In winter this man places an eiderdown quilt inside the camel's hair bag. It brings the total weight to ten and one-half pounds and is warm enough for most anything south of the Arctic Circle.
This is the ideal sleeping equipment. The mattress, of course, is of balsam or spruce boughs, which, in addition to their romantic feature, offer the cheapest, easiest, quickest bed, once a man has learned to make one properly. The one objection to the above sleeping bag is the cost. The total for the complete winter outfit is about fifty dollars. The summer equipment costs nearly twenty-five dollars. But it is the only feasible sleeping bag. Only the novice will take the heavy, unsanitary clammy affair generally offered for sale.
The man who cannot, or will not, make a bough bed has the best substitute in an air mattress. These weigh from nine pounds up. Be sure to buy one that is quilted. One big air sack is a difficult thing to sleep on. If the sleeper moves he slides or rolls off. This mattress can be placed most anywhere and is inflated by the lungs.
The common form of bedding is the lone blanket. The man who cannot afford camel's hair or llama wool turns to the pure sheep's wool affair, which, while it is much heavier, furnishes all the comfort necessary if there is skill in making the bed. The best camping blanket is the Hudson's Bay Company's famous affair. The four-point weighs twelve pounds and is seven and one-half feet long by six feet wide, doubled. The three and three and one-half-point blankets are smaller, but of the same thickness. The three and one-half, weighing ten pounds, is the most adaptable size. Such a blanket should be purchased in the white or khaki colors. The wool is unscoured and retains the natural animal grease, thereby being almost waterproof. There is an imitation of this blanket. The genuine bears the company's seal always.
The out-of-door sleeper soon learns that as much cold comes from beneath as from above and the sides. A rubber blanket keeps out most of this, but a sheet of tanalite or a waterproofed tent floor better answers the purpose. For the same reason the bough bed should be well made and thick.
The novice often has difficulty in making such a bed, although many books have described methods The boughs are easily gathered by cutting down a balsam and dragging it to the camp site. There the limbs are quickly cut off with an axe. The larger branches are placed on the ground first, with the bow side up. This furnishes the spring. Then they are thatched with smaller branches, the process beginning at the head and being carried to the foot, the soft tops covering the butts. There is no necessity of making too long a bed. Enough to keep the hips and shoulders off the ground is sufficient.
If it is necessary to carry balsam some distance to the camp site it is most easily done by "limbing" the tree where it is felled and carrying by the woodsman's method. The axe head is placed on the ground and the branches hooked around the perpendicular handle. A man can carry enough for a good bed in one load.
In a country where there are no balsam or pine, willow tops, first year's growth, will be the best substitute.
A good bed is one of the most important things in camp life, and the canoeist should study his methods until he attains perfection. A cold bed, or an uneven one, will not afford the rest a hard day demands. Even the pillow should not be shirked, though your companion may say he is satisfied with his shoes. A cotton bag weighs nothing, and it may be stuffed each night with an extra shirt, socks, or sweater.
CHAPTER XIII
TENTS FOR CANOEING
THE canoe tent must be: light, easily and quickly erected, have enough floor space for sleeping and for storing the outfit, and be fly-proof. A large number of models and mosquito contrivances have been devised. None of them is perfect, for the reason that any such tent is a series of compromises. The best can only have the maximum of advantages with the minimum of drawbacks.
On a canoe journey the tent is taken down each morning and set up each night. At the end of a long day's paddle, when camp is to be made and a meal cooked, the simplest tent becomes the best. The tent is used only for sleeping and protecting the duffle from the weather. Therefore it need not be large nor with much head room. For cold or rainy days in the north country it should be possible to throw open the front and build a fire in the doorway. Camp may be made at the end of a rainy day; there should be a bottom or floor of waterproof material.
To meet these requirements the following tents have been devised: The old, standard "A," or wedge tent without a wall; the miner's, or pyramid, tent; the Frazer tent, an adaptation of the miner's; the baker, or shed, tent, with a rear wall, straight sides, slanting roof, and front awning which serves as a door; the lean-to, which is best for fall when the flies have gone; the canoe tent, with either peak or short ridge, which is a combination of the "A," miner's, and baker; the Hudson Bay tent, a combination of the miner's and "A" styles; and, lastly, an adaptation of the miner's tent which brings the peak forward and affords a straight wall in front.
Nearly all of these tents may be set up by using ridge ropes instead of poles and attaching them to trees. Such a method is generally unsatisfactory because of the time wasted in finding trees in the right places and in grubbing out between them. In mosquito season camp should be pitched in the open. A tent never fits well with a rope ridge, and a badly fitting tent does not shed water or wind adequately.
If poles are used with any of these tents according to the old style, they are in the center of the floor space or of the door in all types except the baker and lean-to. By using an outside ridge pole attached to the ridge by tapes, the center and door poles may be eliminated, but at the cost of cutting double the number of poles. With the baker, canoe, and straight-front miner's tent, guy ropes are necessary. These require time and are irritating obstructions.
After trying and studying every type and method of erecting, the writer settled upon the following as, in his opinion, the most efficient and most quickly erected tent for canoeing purposes: a miner's tent was ordered without the hole in the peak for the center pole. Instead, a strong canvas loop was sewed into the solid peak. The flaps at the front were made eighteen inches wider, so that they lap more than three feet when tied. On a rainy day they may be staked out, a fire built in front, and cooking done from the shelter of the laps. A floor of waterproof duck was sewn to the bottom of the tent on the sides and back. The dimensions are seven feet three inches square by seven feet three inches high at the peak. The material is light, waterproof cotton, and the total weight is fourteen pounds. With a tanalite floor the weight would be eight or nine pounds and the tent even more serviceable.
The method in erecting the tent is as follows: The bed is built on the ground. Two poles ten feet long are cut with crotched ends. Seven stakes are required. The tent is stretched over the bed and staked down. The crotched poles are inserted in the canvas loop at the peak, and the tent is up.
Attached to the canvas loop at all times is a piece of cheesecloth large enough to cover the entire front of the tent. In mosquito season this is spread across the door immediately when the tent is erected, the bottom being folded in under the floor.
Such a tent has the following features: Its steep sides shed water perfectly, and its pyramid shape offers no opportunity for the wind to grasp it. The floor insures a dry tent, no matter how damp the ground. The bed is beneath the floor, and there is always a clean, dry place on which to spread the blankets. The floor and the cheesecloth keep out all flies, mosquitoes, midges, snakes, insects, and small, camp-prowling animals. There is room for three persons and their equipment. Two per sons can stand erect at the same time. The wide flaps enlarge the tent on a rainy day or may be staked out perpendicularly on cold nights and permit a large fire in the door.
The tent has one drawback. On a rainy night the door, which slants back to the peak, must be tied. This is of minor importance when the advantages are considered. The Frazer tent eliminates this by having an awning over a narrow door. But this requires guy ropes or poles, and the small door does not permit a thorough drying or warming of the tent by means of a big fire in front. By increasing the size to nine by nine feet, such a miner's tent would easily accommodate four men and their equipment.
When there are four men in a party, however, the question of speed and ease in erecting the shelter is of less importance than where there are two. It is then that a good baker tent becomes adequate. More poles are required, but there are more men and axes to cut them. Such a tent is exceptionally good for wet or cold weather, while in mosquito season cheesecloth stretched across the front, and with a taped slit in the center, keeps out the flies. For a comparatively small weight in shelter, many men can sleep in a baker tent.
The other styles find their adherents for various reasons--more head room, more floor space, accustomed use, etc.
The day of the canvas tent for canoeing is long past. Several varieties of lightweight, waterproofed cotton are on the market. A khaki or green color is better than the white, being less attractive to lies and softening the glare of the sun. Tanalite has the advantage of not leaking even if it should fall down. This feature permits the storing of duffle against the walls. The material selected should not only shed water but should not absorb moisture. Then its weight is not increased if packed on a rainy morning.
A floor sewed to the edges of the tent gives the best protection from dampness, draughts, and insects and is the most efficient and easily handled form of floor cloth. Many canoeists use a separate piece of waterproof duck, which is spread out in the tent on top of the sod cloth, or inside lap sewed to the edges of the tent. This is not absolutely insect proof and forms a separate article. The last is an advantage, however, when the floor cloth is used for packing with a tump line.
Mosquito netting or bobbineta are not adequate insect excluders in the north country, though farther south they are sufficient. Cheesecloth is, and it permits a free circulation of air. Some use a secondary tent of cheesecloth suspended inside the tent. This only adds to the trouble of getting in shape for the night and is not so efficient as the cheesecloth door tucked under the tent floor. Still another system is a door of cheesecloth sewed in all around, entrance being through an opening in the center closed with a puckering string. The disadvantage in this lies in the fact that the tent cannot be thrown open to a fire in cold or rainy weather.
In deciding on your tent, don't aim for any single advantage. Weigh everything, consider every possible contingency, the values and defects of every device. Don't seek the perfect tent, for it does not exist. The nearly perfect tent is the most efficient compromise.
CHAPTER XIV
COOKING UTENSILS, COOKING, AND FOODS
MODERN equipment has made it possible for the canoeist, with a minimum of weight and bulk in his culinary outfit, to obtain the maximum results, always provided, of course, that he knows how to handle it.
For a party of two, the following list comprises every article necessary for the preparation of as good a meal as may be desired:
Three kettles, one frying pan, one mixing pan, one folding baker, three plates, three cups, a mixing spoon, and two knives, forks, and table spoons.
Nothing else is necessary for the proper preparation and service of a meal. An aluminum alloy has been used to make the best type of cooking utensil. Stamped from one piece of noncorroding, tough, long lived metal, the aluminum kettles are as near perfection as possible. The only objection to them, that advanced by users of packsacks, is that the shape is not adaptable to their method of packing. The same model of cooking utensils is made of pressed steel. It is only slightly heavier than the aluminum and costs less than half as much.
These kettles are round and are made to nest and fit in duffle bags. An oval nesting kettle is in universal use among cruisers in northern Minnesota. The three or four pails are light and easily packed in a packsack. They are not, however, stamped from one piece.
Aluminum frying pans were discarded immediately, and those of steel substituted. To permit nesting with the aluminum kettles and dishes, these pans have been made with several varieties of detachable or folding handles. All are intended for use with a stick. With such an outfit all the kettles, pans, frying pan, plates, cups, knives, forks, and spoons may be nested compactly and carried in one canvas bag. With the oval cruising pails for the Middle West the frying pan is made with a two-inch handle to which a square loop of steel is attached to permit the insertion of a wooden handle.
It must be remembered in choosing any cooking or packing utensil that tin rusts, that fruit strong in acids should never be kept in tin kettles or push-top tins and, preferably, even not cooked in them. Sourdough, if kept in a tin receptacle, causes much rust. A graniteware or aluminum pail is best. Aluminum cups, because of the rapid manner in which the metal conducts heat, are impossible. Many do not like aluminum plates for the same reason. Weight may be saved by having the mixing pan of aluminum. So called "white metal" forks, or those of aluminum, are best. Aluminum spoons are strong and light, while the old steel case knife is sufficient.
Bakers are made of tin and aluminum. The aluminum bends out of shape easily, but is a little lighter. The baker whose sides form a peak at the rear is of too obtuse an angle to do good work and will not brown bread or cake on top. There should be a perpendicular wall of two or three inches behind. The tin baker is little heavier and more easily set up and taken down With either, the reflecting surface should be kept bright. One with a nine by twelve inch pan is large enough for three or four persons.
With these utensils to choose from, the canoeist may obtain a light, durable, efficient outfit. If the cost is a factor, he may buy the cheaper equipment of tin, pick up an aluminum mixing pan and spoons and graniteware, tin or aluminum plates at a department store sale and purchase a twenty-five-cent frying pan and have the hardware man cut off the handle and attach a square loop for a stick. All should be packed in one or two canvas bags to keep the black kettles and pans from other duffle in the pack.
All food should be carried in muslin or light duck bags. These can be purchased, ready waterproofed, as cheaply as they can be made. The waterproofing does not insure dry food, but it keeps out dirt and does not absorb moisture. There should be an assortment of small push-top tins for pepper, matches, spices, soda, and baking powder, and larger ones for tea, coffee, and bacon grease.
Add an axe to the tent, blankets and cooking utensils, and the canoeist's equipment is complete, with the exception of his personal outfit, treated in the next chapter. The axe, in summer, need be only a half or quarter axe with twenty or twenty-four-inch handle. Never take the toy hatchet offered for sale. A leather sheath permits placing the axe in a pack. If the axe is packed in the food pack each morning, it is out of the way except when needed and will not be lost. In fall a full axe should be carried, as the large amount of wood required makes the hand axe inadequate. A necessary accessory is a file for sharpening the axe and a whetstone or oil stone for sharpening both axe and knives.
The question of camping food is limitless. The canoeist making an easy journey in a civilized country need have no anxiety, as he can transport nearly everything he wishes. The man going far from a base of supplies must look carefully over his food list, and he will check it off and study it for several years before he arrives at his ideal supply.
The party taking a trip of two or three weeks may carry several things in the line of luxuries, especially if each member be an able packer. When a trip of one or two months is to be made, and supplies for the entire trip are to be carried, only the essentials are possible.
The woodsman, born and brought up in the wilderness, requires much more food than the man who goes to the forest only for recreation. The woodsman eats more than is necessary, but he is a peculiar individual and wants all that he eats. He won't work without it. The city man, accustomed to light breakfast and luncheon and sedentary habits, is suddenly confronted with violent physical exercise and a greatly increased appetite when he goes into the woods. He thinks he eats a great deal, but he does not, in comparison with the woodsman.
A prospector who has spent a lifetime in Ontario and other parts of Canada has a list which he has proven many times. He counts on the following for men who work for him: One pound of flour, one pound of bacon, one third pound of dried fruit, and one-third pound of beans per man per day. Rice, sugar, tea, salt, salt pork for beans, butter, and canned milk bring the total per man per day to more than three and one-half pounds. He does not like to bother with butter, but is compelled to take it to keep the men in good humor.
Such a ration would last a city man two days and probably three. The reason for citing it here is to give the city man an idea of how he must prepare for the appetite of a guide.
Many books and articles have been written on the subject of food, and tables have been formed. But individual taste and preference is so great a factor that lists are of little Value except to furnish ideas and for checking. Let the canoeist remember these facts and then build up his list of supplies accordingly:
Flour, beans, rice, sugar, and fats are necessary to produce muscle and energy.Dried fruits are necessary to tone the system and offer variety in a plain fare.
A preponderance of fats is injurious in warm weather.
The great drain on energy results in a craving for much sugar.
Cornmeal should be eaten sparingly in Summer. It is an excellent fall or winter food.
Butter, though a good food, is a habit, and its absence will be forgotten in a few days. To carry it is a nuisance.
It is well to carry one luxury. For some this is evaporated milk, for others jam or conserves. Let the individual decide what it shall be and then carry it.
The question of cooking food is so closely linked with the question of food that they should be considered simultaneously. A good cook can prepare appetizing, nourishing, adequate meals from the dozen or so essential raw materials. If there is such a cook in a party, both weight and bulk may be greatly reduced. Kephart condensed the entire subject of out-of-door food and cooking into one sentence "The less a man carries in his pack, the more he must carry in his head."*
* Camp Cookery, Outing Hand Book No.2.
The good cook will know the following and also know how to meet each problem:
The three principal kinds of foods are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The first two produce heat and energy, the last forms gas, water, and waste material.Proteins remain in the stomach twice as long as carbohydrates, and fats even longer.
Proteins and fats are, as a rule, easily and quickly cooked. Carbohydrates are not available as foods until broken down by thorough cooking.
This sounds uninteresting and scientific, but it is the essential foundation of efficient cooking and eating in the wilderness. Proteins, which remain in the stomach longer, should be served at the morning and noon meals, to prevent an empty stomach and an "all-in" feeling before the next meal.
Carbohydrates produce the necessary energy and heat, but they do not "stay with you." Further, they require much cooking. Therefore, the wise cook will:
Serve pancakes and bacon for breakfast they will remain long in the stomach, and also a well cooked cereal, because it is a strength giver.Serve well cooked beans, baked or boiled, at noon. They have a large percentage of carbohydrates and in addition are nearly one fourth protein. Biscuits, baked at breakfast, or sourdough bread, and sauce, complete a well balanced noonday meal.
Serve rice with sugar and cream at night. This is a valuable food and easily digested. It leaves the stomach quickly, and the man unaccustomed to heavy eating as well as heavy exercise gives his stomach as well as his muscles a rest when he goes to bed. Rice served alone at noon is not enough. It furnishes sufficient food value, but it is digested so quickly a man cannot work well until the next meal.
The above is intended as a skeleton idea. Around the framework of slowly digesting but nourishing meals morning and noon and nourishing but easily digested meals at night, the good cook may build an infinite variation. He must also remember that apricots are essential the first few days, as well as a few raw onions, to keep the suddenly overtaxed system in order. He will know that raisins are exceptional as they do not have to be cooked to make them available as a food. So quick is their action they really are a non-injurious stimulant.
A little forethought in planning and preparing is a great aid in obtaining quick and adequate meals. The cook should study his map closely. If he has a day with no portages before him, he may spend the preceding evening in the preparation of several things that can be easily carried in the canoe, but which would be a nuisance on a portage.
Sourdough may be carried in a pail or push-top tin. By mixing in additional flour each night, the breakfast pancakes are easily provided for, and the harmful baking powder is eliminated. Sourdough bread may be raised over night and baked at breakfast time.
Cookies may be baked in the baker after supper, or during the preparation of the evening meal, and carried in a large push-top tin. If there are no portages the next day, a pie made the night previous will reach the noon lunch unharmed. Sourdough bread or baking powder biscuits should always be baked in the morning for the noonday meal.
Beans, if baked in a bean hole over night, or boiled after supper until soft, can be carried in a push-top tin. They insure an efficient meal the next noon. If there are no portages in the afternoon, sauce may be boiled at noon for the evening meal.
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© 2000 Craig O'Donnell
May not be reproduced without my permission.
Go scan your own damn article.