Woodcraft | Page 3

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
cumbersome 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 knob 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 Saturday 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 assisted 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