Birch-Bark Torch

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Site Contents

By Dan Beard

Peel off several strips of birch bark, four or five inches wide; double and fold them two or three times if the pieces are long.

Split one end of a stick for a torch handle and slip one or more of the doubled strips into the end of the stick.

The Northern Indian always keeps a lot of nearly folded bunches of birch bark, tied with cedar-bark rope, on hand for use as torches in spearing fish at night.

Remove the outside bark of a cedar tree, and then from the bottom up strip off the fine inner bark, and from these fibers twist what ropes or strings you need around camp.

Keep your feet dry; that is, keep them dry while in camp. To do this take an abundant supply of old socks with you and two pairs of shoes --one pair for dry shoes and an old pair for wet ones. With an old pant of trousers all some leaky shoes you may wade a trout stream and stand in the water for hours without suffering any ill effects if you are prompt in removing the wet clothes ,and replacing them with dry shoes, socks, and trousers as soon as you leave the water. Experience has taught many sportsmen that this method is far more comfortable and healthful than wearing expensive hot and clumsy rubber boots.

I was never lost in the woods, but once. I remember that I had read in books that the moss grew thickest on the north side of the trees. Upon careful examination I could distinguish no difference between the moss on one side of the trees and that on the other side; the moss grew all around! The thick interlacing branches overhead concealed the sun. After wandering around in a circle for hours I at last heard the rushing of water, and, following the sound, soon discovered the brook I had been fishing, down which I waded until I struck camp at 4 PM, having left there at 4 AM. I was wet, cold, and hungry, but otherwise all right.

An Indian in starting out always carefully notes the direction of the wind. Where the sky is not obscured the sun and stars serve as guides, but the safest way is to blaze trees as you go (mark them with your hatchet), or every now and then break a twig or branch, bending the broken end in the direction you are pursuing, thus making a trail that is easily retraced. Streams always flow toward greater bodies of water, and somewhere along these water roads, farms or settlements are located; so if you are really lost, follow the first stream until it leads you, as it invariably will, to some road, settlement, or camp.

While the trapper, scout, and guide can sleep peacefully wrapped in a blanket with his feet to the fire, it takes a green city boy some time to accustom himself to the katydids "pinching bugs," and various other harmless but more or less annoying small creatures of the wood. If the "tender foot" will get his mother to make him

A Sleeping Bag

of an old blanket, he can creep into it at night and cover his head with a bit of mosquito-netting and sleep as soundly as his guide, with no fear of insects or other small creatures interrupting his slumber.

OHB