Chapter XXIX: Camp Life

One of the most important matters that demand the sportsman’s attention, is the equipment he should take with him to make his life in the woods pleasant. He will have many annoyances and even hardships to encounter, and should be as well prepared to meet them as circumstances will permit. The following directions are founded upon the idea he intends to retire to the wilderness, far from the abode of man, where he will have to trust for his support to his own exertions, and although many of them may seem superfluous, and to the robust may savor of effeminacy, to those who desire real comfort they will prove acceptable.

The great pest of the wild woods is--not tigers nor panthers, not bears nor wolves, not even snakes--but something far smaller but infinitely more terrible--THE BLACK FLY! If it were possible for the uninitiated to conceive or the pen to describe the horrors conveyed in these words, I should endeavor to record them. Think of the rack, the boot, the thumb-screw, the wheel; think of being rent asunder by wild horses, or torn in bits with hot pincers; think of the tortures of the inquisition, or the cruel fanaticism of India, and smile; they do not compare with the black fly. When mosquitoes hover round you day and night, when they fill the air you breathe and deafen your ears with their hum, when your hands, face and body are covered with itching lumps, it is hard to bear. But mosquitoes are comparatively quiet in the sun-light, and are partially affected by smoke; they can be influenced by a smudge, can be frightened off and sometimes killed; they do not compare with the sand-fly.

The latter, almost invisible to the naked eye, comes in absolute myriads; it settles upon every inch of exposed flesh; it creeps into every crevice; it cannot be frightened away, but must be brushed off; its worst attacks are at night, when tired nature is pining for a little rest; its bite does not itch, but burns like fire, till face, hands and neck feel as though they had been scalded. But the sand-fly, bad as he is, can be persuaded out of your tent by a fire; he does not abound except in sandy localities; his bite does not draw blood, nor raise a lump, and is not permanent; he does not compare with the black fly.

The latter comes without a warning note; he bites till the blood runs in a stream, and inflicts the sharpest pain; he clings fast till he is absolutely rubbed off, and crawls up your sleeve or pants or down your neck; he loves not the fire, nor fears the smoke; he cannot be enticed nor driven away. The mosquito comes numerous as the rain-drops in a shower; the sand-fly as the motes in sunlight; but the black fly like the sand of the desert when the simoom is raging. Resignation can endure the first, stoicism the second, but nothing the last.

All three of these pests are found abundantly in the woods, and without being prepared for them, instead of pleasure, the sportsman’s trip would be one long torture. People have been known to be completely disfigured by their bites, and I have had my neck as thoroughly girdled as though it had been done with a hot iron. Their bite inflames the blood, and if accompanied with the free use of ardent spirits, may produce unpleasant consequences. Let no man through foolhardiness brave their attacks, thinking he can rough it and not give way before such pitiful insects; as brave and strong men as ever lived have had their pleasure destroyed by these curses of our country, and he will repent his rashness, if not in sack-cloth and ashes, in blood and misery. I have seen a hard-working man so worn out by their attacks as to fall fast asleep standing up leaning against a rock in a hot July sun, that by its excessive warmth had for the moment driven the torments away. He wore a veil, but not being properly arranged, the flies could climb up its folds, and it was little protection.

One may well ask how is it possible to defend oneself from such irrepressible villains; nor can it be done perfectly; with the best precautions there will be enough to try nerve and temper. Gauntlets of leather drawn above the wrists over the coat sleeve will, though rather warm, effectually protect the hand, and when oppressive, may be cooled by being dipped in water. A veil is the best thing for the face; a piece of elastic run round the top will enable you to slip it over your straw hat and fasten it above the brim, which will keep it out from the face; a spring wire or whalebone hoop sewed in a few inches below, will keep it off your nose, and another piece of elastic round the bottom will hold it tight around your cravat, so that the flies cannot make their way beneath it; or the latter may be omitted to enable you to wipe your face and rub off those stragglers that will find their way in, notwithstanding your precautions. There is a light substance called tissue, that makes a cool but delicate veil, and is preferable to the ordinary barege, and for mosquitoes and black flies, bobinet is still lighter, but sand-flies might pass the meshes.

Various ointments have been tried with partial success; among them, tar ointment has lately become conspicuous, as also oil with a few drops of creosote, but my favorite has always been a mixture of the oil of penny-royal with an equal amount of almond or sweet oil; this is both cleanly and effectual, and need only be renewed once a day. But remember it must be the oil and not the essence of pennyroyal, which latter is utterly worthless. Care must be taken with it, as with the others, not to let them run into the eyes, as they will produce unpleasant smarting. This composition is death on black flies, and quite successful against mosquitoes; but it is well, also, to be provided with tar ointment, which will not spill if the bottle is broken.

For clothes, the best suit is of strong duck, heavy enough to resist an able-bodied mosquito, but as loose as possible, so that warm flannels, of which every description should be taken in abundance, can be worn beneath. Flannel coats, shirts and drawers or pantaloons can be crowded into a small space, and are excellent for keeping out cold, and are not rendered unpleasant by moisture. It must be borne in mind that the Summers in Canada are occasionally absolutely cold, and for weeks in July, I have shivered in every coat and flannel I had with me.

Moccasins are the things for the canoe, but if you try to clamber over rocks or wade streams in them, your feet will be bruised and cut severely. It is advisable to wear stout ankle gaiters that lace up, with heavy iron-nailed slippers that may be fastened with a strap and buckle over them, after you have left the canoe, and by means of which you can cling to the rocks without slipping so frequently as you otherwise would. You will wear a straw hat, of course, and where mosquitoes are not innumerable, your flannel underclothes will make a delightful boating suit. Never use anything but woollen socks for any sort of hard walking, and by having your net handle shod with iron, and carrying it in one hand, you will make your way among the slippery rocks with comparative safety.

The bedding should consist of plenty of blankets, and one or two of them coated with India rubber and rendered waterproof, to keep off the moisture that will always rise from the ground at night, to wrap the rest of your clothes in, and to protect them and yourself from rain and wet. A stout leather strap and buckle is necessary for the latter purpose. The best tent is a circular one without any ridge-pole, but supported by a rope run through a pulley attached to three long poles cut in the woods, and placed in the shape of a tripod above. The pins are driven into the cloth itself, and hold it so close to the ground that no insects can penetrate beneath, while a flap effectually closes the door. There is a hole for ventilation at the top, which, in a rain, may be closed with a canvas cap. A stout post may be set up in the centre with a few nails on which to hang clothes. This tent should only be used at a permanent camp; and for travelling, the ordinary tent with a ridge-pole, as more accurately described hereafter, is preferable; a piece of oiled cloth laid over sticks planted slanting in the ground, will keep off the rain and dew.

A round tent of twenty-four feet in circumference will not accommodate more than two men luxuriously, whereas one of double that circumference will hold five times the number. A large tent is a great comfort and not much trouble. A separate tent should of course be taken for your men, and another simple one for a make-shift and a dining-room. To arrange the latter is your first care on arriving at your permanent camping-ground, the table is of bark, either birch or spruce, nailed fast to posts, and shielded by some protection from the rain; the seats are either a large log or the barrels you have brought with you to carry stores and fish, or else stools ingeniously chipped from the trunks of trees with the branches for legs. A dressing-stand is then arranged, with a wash-basin made of birch bark; the fire-place is rigged up with a ridge-pole supported on two notched sticks, and with a hooked withe to support the kettle, and your sylvan home is furnished.

To support and gratify the inner man, it is well to have with you all conceivable little delicacies, such as nutmegs, allspice, preserved fruits, meats and vegetables, sweet oil, lemons and raisins, sardines, chocolate, citric acid and ginger; but the necessaries are clear salt pork, flour, rice, oat-meal and Indian-meal, coffee, tea, brown and white sugar, red and black pepper, fine and coarse salt, butter, sauces, preserved and fresh eggs, solidified milk, ales and ardents according to consumption, potatoes, smoked beef, pickles, piccalilly, matches, the essence of coffee, bacon, ham, dried beans and peas, hominy, cigars, onions, bread, crackers, molasses, tobacco, desiccated meats and soups. Many of these articles may be advantageously stowed in the barrels intended for packing fish, but the butter should be put up in air-tight jars in small quantities, and may in hot weather be buried under water in the sand. The oil tried out of the pork is usually used for frying; but if you have sufficient butter the latter is infinitely preferable.

For cooking you will need an iron pot and boiling kettle, tin kettles fitting inside of one another, a frying-pan with a handle like the kettle, a coffee-pot, some knives and tin plates, cups, spoons, forks and deep dishes, and above all an oyster broiler. The latter has thin wires, and, having two surfaces, can be turned more readily than a gridiron. It should be used extensively: fish and game split open and broiled, well basted with butter, are undeniable, and will be found a pleasant change from the eternal fry. Large fish may be boiled and served up with a little of the liquor strengthened with a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce. The greatest difficulty will be found with the bread; the latter may be kept a couple of weeks, and when excessively dry, by steaming in the pot will be rendered eatable, but not good. Ship biscuit must be the main reliance for a long tramp. Before taking your departure, if you could obtain a few lessons in cooking from some elderly lady friend whose youth has not been so entirely devoted to dress as to prevent her knowing something of her household duties, and will carry with you a few simple recipes, you will not regret it.

As no one can be certain of perfect health or freedom from accident, it is well to be provided with plenty of sticking and court plaster, cholera medicine and Rochelle salts; but generally the fine exercise and open air are a brave preventive against sickness. Do not forget brown soap to wash the dishes, candles for light in the evening, and cream of tartar and soda to make the flour rise.

The most necessary tools are an axe, a hatchet, one of Aiken’s patent diminutive awl tool-chests, with which to mend broken rods, needles and thread to mend torn clothes, some rosin to mend the canoes, and a supply of various sizes of nails for numerous purposes, while a file and sharpening stone will be found useful additions. An india-rubber water-proof bag is admirable as a receptacle for clothes or blankets, which should be heavy, and a tin wash-basin and an air-pillow will be great additional comforts. Fresh eggs may be conveniently stowed in the barrels of coarse salt used for curing fish.

Of the foregoing there are none you can comfortably omit, and besides them there are plenty you would do well to have; but the judgment and taste of each individual will suggest the additions.

As one of the first objects will be to preserve the fish you catch, a preparation of eight ounces of sugar, two ounces of salt, half an ounce of brown pepper, well rubbed into fish from which the back bone has been removed, and which are allowed to dry in the sun, will preserve them over a month. They should be packed in barrels with layers of bark between, and will prove more edible than when simply smoked; by smoking they may be kept for years, and the fisherman long have the proud pleasure of offering to friend at breakfast a little of the salmon he killed and smoked himself the previous Summer in Canada.

In warm weather, fish merely salted cannot be kept long, and pickling in brine utterly destroys their flavor; but if the latter method must be adopted, a pickle of two parts salt and one part common brown sugar will keep them forever. Before cooking, however, they should be well soaked. Pickling in vinegar with a few cloves is probably the best mode where it is possible.

The gum for mending the canoes--and it is surprising how large a hole it will fill--is made of one part rosin to three parts balsam gum, fused together. If the aperture is very extensive, a piece of linen saturated with melted gum should be applied. In New Brunswick and Maine it is usual to mix rosin and grease, which answers every purpose.

To smoke fish, it is necessary to salt them in a tub, where they can form a brine, and leave them thus for two days, and then hang them in a smoke-house, not too near the fire, for as many weeks, when they are to be packed in layers, separate. Fish are soused by being partially boiled, and having vinegar boiled in copper kettles mixed with allspice and poured over them. Iron turns the vinegar black, and hence this mode cannot be pursued in the woods. Small fish may be headed, cleaned and packed in a jar, which is then filled up with vinegar and allspice and baked all night. Next day fresh vinegar is added to make up for the evaporation, and lard is run in to exclude the air. They keep well and taste excellent.

An air-tight can is now made, with a cover that fits into a trough which can be filled with melted rosin. This may be used over and over again, and is peculiarly adapted to the woods. It must be hermetically sealed while the contents are boiling, but without sealing might be advantageously used to protect sugar and such things from the wet. The same cover is applied to brown earthen jars, which are well suited for carrying butter.

Literature will be found a great resource in the woods, and although Harper’s last Monthly may be permissible on account of the shortness of its stories, nothing should be taken of too interesting a character, lest it divert attention from the main object in view. This work will be found extremely safe.

In giving the foregoing directions it is assumed that the reader intends to travel with canoes, and does not expect to make any extensive portages, or, as they are called in American, “carries;” for if the men are expected to back the traps for any considerable distance, the only admissible articles are fishing-tackle, penny-royal, an axe, the tents, pork, ship biscuit, tea, sugar, pepper, salt, tea-kettle, matches and a frying-pan. The slightest weight becomes a mountain on such occasions, and it will require stout muscles to carry enough for their own sustenance. In salmon-fishing this is rarely necessary, unless a man would be an explorer, and the adventurous are always sufferers.

As it is possible none of my reader’s female acquaintance have ever soiled their rosy fingers--Heaven save the mark!--with domestic cookery, an outline of the theory of that science may be advantageous. There are certain well known rules that have no exceptions, unless in the hands of a genius, and which apply to classes and divisions of edibles. For instance, a little salt must always be thrown into the water before anything is boiled in it. Thus, again, with the great class of fried cakes: milk thickened with flour, and an egg or two, and a pinch of salt, makes griddle: add squash, boiled and mashed, and you have squash cakes; employ boiled and mashed rice in place of squash, and there is produced the delicate rice cake; introduce Indian-meal, which has been first scalded, and you have Indian cakes. This class of cakes is made by pouring the preparation, in large tablespoonfuls at a time, on a greased griddle or frying-pan. In broiling, frying, roasting, baking, or stewing, salt and pepper are first rubbed on the article to be cooked; in broiling, baking, or roasting, it is basted with butter or grease, and in frying the butter is first put in the pan and heated. Potatoes boiled, and cut thin when cold, are delicious fried. In stewing, a little water is poured over the meat, and the cooking is done with a cover on.

Frying is with butter or grease alone; stewing with grease and a little water; and boiling with water alone. You determine when things are done by the color and trying how they resist a fork. An excellent chowder is made by putting pork, fish, cracker, meat, clams, and anything else that is handy, with vegetables, sufficient seasoning, and a little water, and stewing it well. Stewing can hardly be carried to excess, as from the closeness of the vessel the nutritious particles cannot escape.

The best omelette the tyro can make, and excellent it will be found, is by frying eggs, which are first beaten up and seasoned, till they are not quite firm. They must be stirred all the while to keep them from burning, and if they are done hard are ruined.

A white sauce is made of flour and butter well mixed together, stirred into hot water and allowed to boil for a few minutes; a hard boiled egg may be chopped up and added if desired. This is the appropriate sauce for salmon. A brown gravy is made from the drippings of the meat, and some burnt sugar or browned crumbs added and warmed up.

The following is an accurate recipe for griddle cakes: one pint of boiled rice, three tablespoonfuls of flour, two tablespoonfuls of milk and two eggs. While for fried cakes it will be observed that flour, milk and eggs are used, for ordinary cakes flour, butter and eggs are necessary, with sugar added for sweetening. Thus, a good cake is made of five cups of flour, three cups of sugar, two cups of butter and four eggs. This cake must be baked slowly, which could be done in a piece of birch bark inclosed in heated stones, allowing room for it to rise.

The simplest and best way to boil a salmon is to slash him on the sides with vertical cuts to the bone, having previously drawn, opened and cleaned him, to wash him well in the nearest spring, put him into boiling water sufficiently salt to bear an egg, and cook him seven or eight minutes to every pound of weight, and serve him with some of the water he was cooked in for sauce. The latter may be thickened with flour and butter. He should, like all other fish, be cooked fresh.

Broiled fish, or, if they are large, slices of fish, cook better wrapped in a piece of paper oiled; and the one-half of a salmon spread out, tacked on a board and roasted by a hot fire is excellent; and in cooking small fish suspended by a twig near the fire, Frank Forester recommends that a small stick with a piece of pork threaded on it, should be inserted to keep the belly open, and a biscuit placed below to catch the drippings. A hot fire will cook a fish thus in ten minutes.

To bake a fish he is wrapped in oiled paper or birch bark, and placed in an oven built of stones laid in a hollow, and from which the fire has just been removed, other heated stones are placed above him, and the fire is raked back over the whole.

It will be hardly necessary to remark, in connection with these directions, that fish must be cleaned and have the gills removed and be well washed and scaled before they can be cooked; that when the word butter is used, and my reader have no butter, he must use such grease or oil as he may have; that in all cases he can add such sauces and spices to his condiments as he may relish and possess. Among all the variety of prepared sauces, anchovy for salmon and Worcestershire for meats are the best, but lemon alone gives an excellent flavor.

To bread anything, whether it be fried oysters or fried eels, dip them in the yolk of egg beaten up, and then in cracker pounded fine, or they may first be dipped in flour and afterward in egg and cracker.

Tea is made by pouring a little hot water on the leaves and allowing it to draw by the fire for ten minutes and then filling up with hot water. Coffee, by putting the coffee, mixed with the yolk of an egg, into boiling water and allowing it to boil once--no more, on your life. If you do not wish to use an egg, put in a teaspoonful of cold water immediately on taking it from the fire. This is done to clear it. Chocolate is made by melting a cake broken into small pieces in warm water, adding a cup of milk after it is perfectly smooth, and boiling for twenty minutes. An excellent tea is made of yellow birch bark.

Bread, especially if it is a little stale, is much improved by toasting, which should be done by approaching it close to the fire, even throwing it on the coals and burning the outside almost black. If buttered and covered with brown sugar and eaten hot it makes an excellent dessert.

If salt pork is to be broiled, it should be cut thin, and may be soaked well in water, dipped in Indian-meal, so as to bread it, and then broiled or fried brown. It can be used in soup by being boiled in two waters.

Smoked beef is good if stewed a few minutes with a lump of butter mixed with flour and enough milk to cover the whole, which may be seasoned with pepper. Fried fish that has become cold can be revived in the same way; the flour may be omitted and some salt must be added.

An onion may be boiled in bread sauce, and removed before serving, or pepper may be added; celery chopped and cooked in a stew or sauce adds a peculiarly pleasant flavor. Tough meat of all kinds should be stewed, and except salt pork, meat should be rarely fried. The foregoing are soon acquired by practice, and experience will suggest many valuable alterations; but they are all the directions necessary to make camp life not merely comfortable, but by the aid of a good appetite extremely pleasant. Cookery is no mean science, and a knowledge of it will prove interesting and advantageous not only in the wilderness, but so long as Irish cooks shall rule our kitchens and ruin our digestions, in the realms of civilization.

To unite economy in space and weight with the utmost amount of accommodation, the following sized tents will be found to answer for two fisherman and five guides or even four fishermen.

The tent of the gentlemen should be four cloths deep, each cloth of twenty-six inches, and cut twenty feet long, so that there should be ten feet on each side of the ridge-pole; the wall takes about three feet, at the upper edge of which a small piece is tabled in where the bolt-rope passes, to shed the rain. There is an extra strip of canvas along the ridge, with two small grummets in each end, inside the tent, to receive the poles; but there is no bolt-rope except along the wall, and there must be no cross seams, as they are sure to leak. A shoulder is left on the poles, which are thrust into the grummets and a spreader is forced up between them and sustained as a ridge-pole by a notch cut in each. There are three tent ropes on each side, with a stout line and toggle, or button where they join the tent, to trice up the walls in warm weather; the doors, which are at both ends, lap well over, and are secured by a strong galvanized hook and eye, and are closed with strings. Along the bottom of the wall are rings to peg it down, and the width is the same as the depth. This tent sets up eight feet high, and is quickly pitched if the poles are retained, which can be readily done, as they are convenient in the bottom of the canoe to keep other baggage from the wet. The size may be diminished to eight feet square, but will be found rather cramped, especially in wet weather, when the fisherman is more or less compelled to stay indoors, and will not permit of what is often desirable, accommodating a visitor.

For the men, a simple strip of canvas eight feet square, with sloping sides, is all that is required. In fact, in cold weather an open tent with a fire in front is preferable to all others, and can be kept as warm as an oven. A Sibley tent has many advantages, but must be large, and is troublesome to transport. In cold weather, logs should be cut down and laid up with mud like a hut, or boards driven into the ground close together to form the foundation, and the tent set over them. It will be warmer and more roomy.

Where there is naught to be shot, and as little to be caught, no man has any business in the woods; but as bad marksmanship or scarcity of game may cause the first, or a rise of water the second, it is well to know that a pound of biscuit and a pound of pork per day is all that a man requires for his support. A fair allowance however would be, considering it merely as an addition to the proceeds of the gun and rod, a pound of biscuit or bread, and half a pound of pork. Where flour is taken the amount of bread may be reducd; but as the staff of life occasionally becomes wet and moldy, it is better to be well supplied. Half a pound of solidified milk will last one man ten days, a pound of tea thirty, and half a pound of tobacco one week. Eight pounds of brown sugar, the same of butter, a bushel of potatoes, and two gallons of molasses are sufficient for two anglers and five men one week. It is not customary to give men milk, sugar or coffee; they are carried only for the gentlemen, and the above calculations are made on that footing. These computations may be relied on, and will be found extremely useful; although the luxuries of camp life may fail, the necessaries must not be exhausted. There is no fun in having to send a couple of your best men fifty miles for provisions, when salmon are rising or a long journey is to be made. Time devoted to pleasure is precious; a day wasted is indeed a loss.

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And now, good reader, farewell. In looking over this book, I perceive how far short I have fallen of my own expectations, and feel how greatly I must have disappointed yours. Much has been badly said, much omitted, and no doubt much unintentionally misstated. Opinions differ, and experience leads to contrary results. There are game fish, and modes of taking them, with which doubtless I am unacquainted, and yet I hope you will find something here that has not been written before. My aim has been to induce sportsmen to study the habits and proper designation of the different varieties of game they pursue, to apply the appropriate names and distinguish the various species. My hope is to elevate their purpose above the mere indulgence of that peculiar innate pleasure experienced in the chase, and at the same time, if possible, to press upon the attention of naturalists the vast assistance they might obtain from their humbler brethren by reducing their language to the standard of ordinary comprehension; and above all, to insist, by every consideration of humanity, upon the absolute necessity of preventing the cruel, wanton, and untimely destruction of the beautiful inhabitants of our woods and waters. These have been my objects; it is for you to judge how far I have succeeded. But, reader, let me warn you: neither praise nor dispraise overmuch. In either case I shall write another book, to justify the former or disprove the latter.