COMMON SENSE IN THE WILDERNESS
[Sidenote: Overburdening]
THERE is more danger that a man take too much than too little into the
wilderness. No matter how good his intentions may be, how
conscientiously he may follow advice, or how carefully he may examine
and re-examine his equipment, he will surely find that he is carrying a
great many pounds more than his companions, the professionals at the
business. At first this may affect him but little. He argues that he is
constructed on a different pattern from these men, that his training and
education are such as to have developed in him needs and habits such as
they have never known. Preconceived notions, especially when one is
fairly brought up in their influence, are most difficult to shake off.
Since we have worn coats all our lives, we include a coat in our list of
personal apparel just as unquestionably--even as unthinkingly--as we
should include in our calculations air to breathe and water to drink.
The coat is an institution so absolutely one of man's invariable
garments that it never even occurs to him to examine into its use or
uselessness. In like manner no city dweller brought up in proximity to
laundries and on the firm belief that washing should be done all at once
and at stated intervals can be convinced that he can keep clean and
happy with but one shirt; or that more than one handkerchief is a
superfluity.
[Sidenote: Elimination]
Yet in time, if he is a woodsman, and really thinks about such affairs
instead of taking them for granted, he will inevitably gravitate toward
the correct view of these things. Some day he will wake up to the fact
that he never wears a coat when working or traveling; that about camp
his sweater is more comfortable; and that in sober fact he uses that
rather bulky garment as little as any article in his outfit. So he
leaves it home, and is by so much disencumbered. In a similar manner he
will realize that with the aid of cold-water soap the shirt he wears may
be washed in one half hour and dried in the next. Meanwhile he dons his
sweater, A handkerchief is laundered complete in a quarter of an hour.
Why carry extras, then, merely from a recollection of full bureau
drawers?
[Sidenote: Essentials]
In this matter it is exceedingly difficult to be honest with oneself.
The best test is that of experience. What I have found to be of no use
to me, may measure the difference between comfort and unhappiness to
another man. Carry only essentials: but the definition of the word is
not so easy. _An essential is that which, by each man's individual
experience, he has found he cannot do without._
[Sidenote: How to Determine Essentials]
How to determine that? I have elsewhere indicated[1] a practical
expedient, which will however, bear repetition here. When you have
reached home after your trip, turn your duffle bag upside down on the
floor. Separate the contents into three piles. Let pile No. 1 include
those articles you have used every day--or nearly that often; let pile
No. 2 comprise those you have used but once; and pile No. 3 those you
have not used at all. Now, no matter how your heart may yearn over the
Patent Dingbat in No. 3, shut your eyes and resolutely discard the two
latter piles.
Naturally, if you are strong-minded, pile No. 1 will be a synonym for
your equipment. As a matter of fact you will probably not be as
strong-minded as that. You will argue to yourself somewhat in this
fashion:
"Yes, that is all very well; but it was only a matter of sheer chance
that the Patent Dingbat is not in pile No. 1. To be sure, I did not use
it on this particular trip; but in other conditions I might need it
every day."
[Sidenote: The Philosophy of Duffle]
So you take it, and keep on taking it, and once in a great while you use
it. Then some day you wake up to two more bits of camp philosophy which
you formulate to yourself about as follows: _An article must pay in
convenience or comfort for the trouble of its transportation_; and
_Substitution, even imperfect, is better than the carrying of special
conveniences_. Then he hurls said Patent Dingbat into the nearest pool.
[Sidenote: Patent Dingbats]
That hits directly at the weak point of the sporting catalogues. Every
once in a while an enthusiast writes me of some new and handy kink he is
ready to swear by. It is indeed handy; and if one could pluck it from
the nearest bush when occasion for its use arose, it would be a joy and
a delight. But carrying it four hundred miles to that occasion for its
use is a very different matter. The sporting catalogues are full of very
handy kinks. They are good to fool with and think about, and plan over
in the off season; but when you pack your duffle bag you'd better put
them on a shelf.
Occasionally, but mighty seldom, you will find that something you need
very much has gone into pile No. 3. Make a note of it. But do not be too
hasty to write it down as part of your permanent equipment.
[Sidenote: You Must Not Mind Getting Wet Sometimes]
The first summer I spent in the Sierras I discovered that small noon
showers needed neither tent nor slicker. So next year I left them home,
and was, off and on, plenty wet and cold. Immediately I jumped to the
conclusion that I had made a mistake. It has not rained since. So I
decided that sporadic heavy rains do not justify the transportation of
two cumbersome articles. Now when it rains in daytime I don't mind
getting a little wet--for it is soon over; and at night an adequate
shelter can be built of the tarpaulin and a saddle blanket. In other
words the waterproofs could not pay, in the course of say three-days'
rain in a summer, for the trouble of their transportation during four
months.
As I have said, the average man, with the best intentions, will not go
too light, and so I have laid especial emphasis on the necessity of
discarding the unessential. But there exists a smaller class who rush to
the opposite extreme.
[Sidenote: Another Sort of Tenderfoot]
We all know the type. He professes an inordinate scorn for comfort of
all sorts. If you are out with him you soon discover that he has a vast
pride in being able to sleep on cobblestones--and does so at the edge of
yellow pines with their long needles. He eats badly cooked food. He
stands--or perhaps I should say poses--indifferent to a downpour when
every one else has sought shelter. In a cold climate he brings a single
thin blanket. His slogan seems to be: "This is good enough for me!" with
the unspoken conclusion, "if it isn't good enough for you fellows,
you're pretty soft."
[Sidenote: The Tough Youth]
The queer part of it is he usually manages to bully sensible men into
his point of view. They accept his bleak camps and voluntary hardships
because they are ashamed to be less tough than he is. And in town they
are abashed before him when with a superior, good-natured, and tolerant
laugh he tells the company in glee of how you brought with you a little
pillow-case to stuff with moss. "Bootleg is good enough for me!" he
cries; and every one marvels at his woodsmanship.
As a plain matter of fact this man is the worse of two types of
tenderfoot. The greenhorn does not know better; but this man should. He
has mistaken utterly the problem of the wilderness. The wild life is not
to test how much the human frame can endure--although that often enough
happens--but to test how well the human wits, backed by an enduring
body, can answer the question of comfort. Comfort means minimum
equipment; comfort means bodily ease. The task is to balance, to
reconcile these apparently opposing ideas.
[Sidenote: The Logic of Woodcraft]
A man is skillful at woodcraft just in proportion as he approaches this
balance. Knowing the wilderness he can be comfortable when a less
experienced man would endure hardships. Conversely, if a man endures
hardships where a woodsman could be comfortable, it argues not his
toughness, but his ignorance or foolishness, which is exactly the case
with our blatant friend of the drawing-room reputation.
Probably no men endure more hardships than do those whose professions
call them out of doors. But they are unavoidable hardships. The cowboy
travels with a tin cup and a slicker; the cruiser with a twenty-pound
pack; the prospector with a half blanket and a sack of pilot bread--when
he has to. But on round-up, when the chuck wagon goes along, the
cow-puncher has his "roll"; on drive with the wangan the cruiser sends
his ample "turkey"; and the prospector with a burro train takes plenty
to keep him comfortable. Surely even the Tough Youth could hardly accuse
these men of being "soft."
[Sidenote: Outfit Should Correspond to Means of Transportation]
You must in this matter consider what your means of transportation are
to be. It would be as foolish to confine your outfit for pack horses to
the equipment you would carry on your own back in the forests, as it
would be to limit yourself to a pack horse outfit when traveling across
country in a Pullman car. When you have horses it is good to carry a
few--a very few--canned goods. The corners of the kyacks will
accommodate them; and once in a blue moon a single item of luxury
chirks you up wonderfully and gives you quite a new outlook on life. So
you chuck them in, and are no more bothered by them until the
psychological moment.
[Illustration: The author doing a little washing on his own account]
On a walking trip, however, the affair is different. You can take canned
goods, if you want to. But their transportation would require another
Indian; another Indian means more grub and more equipment; and so at the
last you find yourself at the head of an unwieldy caravan. You find it
much pleasanter to cut the canned goods, and to strike out with a single
companion.
[Sidenote: Common Sense Should Rule]
After all, it is an affair of common sense; but even common sense when
confronted by a new problem, needs a certain directing. The province of
these articles is to offer that direction; I do not claim that my way is
the only way, nor am I rash enough to claim it is the best way. But it
is my way, and if any one will follow it, he will be as comfortable and
as well suited as I am, which is at least better than going it
blind.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Forest.