As this book is written for boys of all ages, it has been divided under
two general heads, "The Tomahawk Camps" and "The Axe Camps," that is,
camps which may be built with no tool but a hatchet, and camps that will
need the aid of an axe.
The smallest boys can build some of the simple shelters and the older boys
can build the more difficult ones. The reader may, if he likes, begin with
the first of the book, build his way through it, and graduate by building
the log houses; in doing this he will be closely following the history of
the human race, because ever since our arboreal ancestors with prehensile
toes scampered among the branches of the pre-glacial forests and built
nestlike shelters in the trees, men have made themselves shacks for a
temporary refuge. But as one of the members of the Camp-Fire Club of
America, as one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, and as the
founder of the Boy Pioneers of America, it would not be proper for the
author to admit for one moment that there can be such a thing as a camp
without a _camp-fire_, and for that reason the tree folks and the "missing
link" whose remains were found in Java, and to whom the scientists gave
the awe-inspiring name of Pithecanthropus erectus, cannot be counted as
campers, because _they did not know how to build a camp-fire_; neither can
we admit the ancient maker of stone implements, called eoliths, to be one
of us, because he, too, knew not the joys of a camp-fire. But there was
another fellow, called the Neanderthal man, who lived in the ice age in
Europe and he _had_ to be a camp-fire man or freeze! As far as we know, he
was the first man to build a camp-fire. The cold weather made him hustle,
and hustling developed him. True, he did cook and eat his neighbors once
in a while, and even split their bones for the marrow; but we will forget
that part and just remember him as the first camper in Europe.
Recently a pygmy skeleton was discovered near Los Angeles which is claimed
to be about twenty thousand years old, but we do not know whether this man
knew how to build a fire or not. We do know, however, that the American
camper was here on this continent when our Bible was yet an unfinished
manuscript and that he was building his fires, toasting his venison, and
building "sheds" when the red-headed Eric settled in Greenland, when
Thorwald fought with the "Skraelings," and Biarni's dragon ship made the
trip down the coast of Vineland about the dawn of the Christian era. We
also know that the American camper was here when Columbus with his comical
toy ships was blundering around the West Indies. We also know that the
American camper watched Henry Hudson steer the _Half Moon_ around
Manhattan Island. It is this same American camper who has taught us to
build many of the shacks to be found in the following pages.
The shacks, sheds, shanties, and shelters described in the following pages
are, all of them, similar to those used by the people on this continent or
suggested by the ones in use and are typically American; and the designs
are suited to the arctics, the tropics, and temperate climes; also to the
plains, the mountains, the desert, the bog, and even the water.
It seems to be natural and proper to follow the camp as it grows until it
develops into a somewhat pretentious log house, but this book must not be
considered as competing in any manner with professional architects. The
buildings here suggested require a woodsman more than an architect; the
work demands more the skill of the axeman than that of the carpenter and
joiner. The log houses are supposed to be buildings which any real outdoor
man should be able to erect by himself and for himself. Many of the
buildings have already been built in many parts of the country by Boy
Pioneers and Boy Scouts.
This book is not intended as an encyclopedia or history of primitive
architecture; the bureaus at Washington, and the Museum of Natural
History, are better equipped for that purpose than the author.
The boys will undoubtedly acquire a dexterity and skill in building the
shacks and shanties here described, which will be of lasting benefit to
them whether they acquire the skill by building camps "just for the fun of
the thing" or in building them for the more practical purpose of
furnishing shelter for overnight pleasure hikes, for the wilderness
trail, or for permanent camps while living in the open.
It has been the writer's experience that the readers depend more upon his
diagrams than they do upon the written matter in his books, and so in this
book he has again attempted to make the diagrams self-explanatory. The
book was written in answer to requests by many people interested in the
Boy Scout movement and others interested in the general activities of
boys, and also in answer to the personal demands of hundreds of boys and
many men.
The drawings are all original and many of them invented by the author
himself and published here for the first time, for the purpose of
supplying all the boy readers, the Boy Scouts, and other older "boys,"
calling themselves Scoutmasters and sportsmen, with practical hints,
drawings, and descriptions showing how to build suitable shelters for
temporary or permanent camps.
DANIEL CARTER BEARD.
FLUSHING, LONG ISLAND,
APRIL 1, 1914.