

E-text prepared by Joseph Gray



WOODCRAFT

by

Nessmuk







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