Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

l8CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTcamps, knots and lashings, buckskin and rawhide,tanning pelts, bee hunting, living off the country,cave exploration, first aid to the injured, and othershifts and expedients that are handy when one isfar from shops and from hired help.I have little to say, here, about the selection ofarms and tackle, about hunting, fishing, trailing,trapping, mountaineering, and nothing about fieldphotography, canoeing, snowshoeing, or the managementof horses and pack trains, because each of thesetopics deserves a book by itself, and we now havegood ones on all of them.*Woodcraft properly relates only to the forestwilderness. The literature of outdoor sport is gettingus used to such correlative terms as plainscraft,mountaincraft, and even icecraft and snowcraft.This sort of thing can be overdone ; but we need ageneric term to express the art, in general, of gettingon well in wild regions of any and all kinds, whetherin forests, deserts, mountains, plains, tropics or arctics;and for this I would suggest the plain Englishcompound wildcraft.If any one should get the Impression from thesepages that camping out with a light outfit meanslittle but a daily grind of camp chores, questionablemeals, a hard bed, torment from Insects, and a goodchance of starvation and broken bones at the end, hewill not have caught the spirit of my intent. It Isnot here my purpose to dwell on the charms of freelife In a wild country; rather, taking all that forgranted, I would point out some short-cuts, and offera lift, here and there, over rough parts of the trail.No one need be told how to enjoy the smooth ones.Hence It Is that I treat chiefly of difficulties, andhow to overcome them.*See the series of Outing Handbooks, and lists of outdoor booksin outfitters' catalogues.