Not everyone enjoys it but to me it is a welcome thing. Our sense of smell, being one of the stronger senses, helps our brain figure out what is pleasant or foul, safe or dangerous, familiar or foreign, and triggers memories. The smell of wood smoke brings a flood of memories to my mind. All the campouts with my friends as a Scout or with my family, my dad teaching me how to build and light a sustainable fire, meals shared among comrades at a reenactment or living history, and more recently the joy of teaching my own children how to build a fire and use it’s properties for heat, food preparation, and safety. All pleasant and happy memories and usually every instance was shared with others. I have discussed religion, economics, and differing politics around a campfire and not once has anyone left out of anger or frustration. Much like a shared meal, or perhaps better than a meal, the campfire has a way of leveling out emotions and cultivating kinship. The “brotherhood” or “sisterhood” of the campfire binds us together as equal and human.

No matter where I am, if I get a whiff of wood smoke a smile can be seen develop across my face. Even while I am typing this, just thinking about it, like Pavlov’s dog, I can’t help myself but smile. When a fire is in the process of being made I know I am in camp. The equipment can be dropped and set up but until the fire is made, my mind is still likely in the outside world with the hustle and bustle. Isn’t it funny how that is? I had the opportunity to camp for one night, in the middle of my town with houses and street lights all around me and semi trucks regularly driving by but even that experience was better and refreshing to me than a night in my soft bed. I certainly did not sleep better and I was very tired by the end of the following day but the experience rejuvenated me and the campfire shared among friends and my troop was just what the doctor ordered. I can’t wait until wood smoke fills my nostrils and fumigate my clothes from the burdens of the outside world again, can you?

“It is an age of hurry and worry. Anything slower than steam is apt to “get left.” Fortunes are quickly made and freely spent. Nearly all busy, hard-worked Americans have an intuitive sense of the need that exists for at least one period of rest and relaxation during each year, and all—or nearly all—are willing to pay liberally, too liberally in fact, for anything that conduces to rest, recreation and sport. I am sorry to say that we mostly get swindled. As an average, the summer outer who goes to forest, lake or stream for health and sport, gets about ten cents’ worth for a dollar of outlay. A majority will admit—to themselves at least—that after a month’s vacation, they return to work with an inward consciousness of being somewhat disappointed—and beaten. We are free with our money when we have it. We are known throughout the civilized world for our lavishness in paying for our pleasures; but it humiliates us to know we have been beaten, and this is what the most of us know at the end of a summer vacation. To the man of millions it makes little difference. He is able to pay liberally for boats, buckboards and “body service,” if he chooses to spend a summer in the North Woods. He has no need to study the questions of lightness and economy in a forest and stream outing. Let his guides take care of him; and unto them and the landlords he will give freely of his substance.” -Nessmuk” (George Washington Sears) 1920

Nothing in Nessmuk’s Woodcraft and Camping is more relatable to me than this part of his opening passage. The time of relief and relaxation from the day to day is so prized that I intentionally try to look ahead, prepare, and plan out what I would like to do on my time off and I always have a running list of things I want to do in preparation for the excursions away from home. I think each of us should purposefully set aside time to get away from the hustle and bustle and use the smaller pockets of free time to prepare in anticipation for the longer excursions, life is too short. I prefer to use the winter months to prepare for my camping trips and living history events since I am not as active. I offer my following checklist for you to adapt and add to your own system to help your preparation and usefulness of available time. I hope you have fun with it!

1. start with the bigger stuff and see if they need repaired or replaced (upgraded): tents, pack, bedding such as sleeping bag or blanket
2. What projects did you want to achieve? put together a sewing kit, first aid kit, fire starting kit, make a packing box, camp furniture, organizational system
3. What expendables need replenished? flashlight batteries, first aid kit, sewing kit, fire kit, emergency rations, emergency gear like emergency blankets or contact information, water filtration, water purification tablets
4. What has been a staple of your gear that needs checked for service and reliability? compass magnetization, maps, knife, hatchet, saw
5. Update list of places you want to visit, hike, camp
6. Put together your own cookbook or try new recipes
7. Test out new equipment, even if it is in your back yard

“It is a good thing for any one to be entirely alone in the out -of-doors once in awhile , and take stock of philosophy and other character resources . In fact , the stock may be found so low it would be embarrassing to be otherwise than alone. And under any circumstances the experience is refreshing, to say the least. Whether or not one gathers new reserve of confidence and energy, as one is pretty apt to,  there is an  over powering feeling of getting well rinsed . 

Now I suspect you are thinking of the long “ lone ” trips Daniel Boone made, and wondering how he survived feeling entirely washed away! The best thing for you is to try it on yourself. I mean for you to  make a hike by your lonesome. The best thing for you is to try it on yourself . I mean for you to make a hike “ by your lonesome . And that immediately is a horse of another colour . Hadn’t thought of doing a thing like that , had you ? Don’t exactly like the idea , do you ? Afraid ? … No , you’re not afraid . But somehow you feel kind of queer , to think of spending a night out in the woods all alone. You’re so used to the exact opposite – living in a house, with other people around you all the time .” (Edward Cave 1920, 109)

Going into the outdoors by oneself and just absorbing the sounds and sights of nature is rejuvenating to me. I get cabin fever in the winter months and literally yearn to be outside experiencing camp life. The cold can be daunting but once prepared to experience it safely, I push that to the side and make room for the unique experiences that winter camping and hiking can make. First of all there are no bugs like mosquitoes, gnats, flies, and ticks to bother you. The energy of being frustrated with these pests can be put toward observing the animal life and signs they leave behind, you can look deeper into the forests than previously able during the warm months with greenery and thriving brush, and of course the unique muffled and almost silent sounds that tends to be all around you when you are exposed. You can breathe without heavy humidity and listen, just listen.

The clear thoughts come to me almost in a meditative way and I feel closer to my God. The outdoors is my cathedral with His creation and beauty all around me. His gifts and opportunities are abundantly visible for me to appreciate. When dusk sets in and the temperature drops aloneness can feel more present and I start feeling more vulnerable or even fleeting thoughts of danger, my human mortality is made obvious. That exposure can be uncomfortable and I have never been on an campout alone where that exposure was not felt, but take courage! It is at this time where we can be defined by our thoughts and actions.

Once we light our fire and feel it’s radiating warmth two of our fears begin to fade away, the feeling of being alone and the feeling of being exposed. The fire dances and keeps us company, gives us something to concentrate on and watch, and it provides the comfort of protection and warmth. There is satisfaction knowing that you used your available resources to build this “friend” and the relationship of the need to sustain it is much like the relationships in our life of the real world. It is a reminder that if we do not want to be alone then we must use our resources and feed our relationships to sustain them, if we don’t then the relationships will die. It is also a small accomplishment, YOU did this and accomplishments are like a drug, once you experience it you want more. What will be your next accomplishment? Making it through the night.

Now note, I did not say get a good night’s rest, no, that will most likely come tomorrow. You may be the type of camper to gather your night wood to help keep that feeling of safety alive and you warm, or maybe you are that type of camper to let it die out throughout the night and as it collapses and the light dims you are lulled into sleep into your warm bedding. Either way, the first night is the hardest to fall asleep. Breaking the routine of the daily grind is easy to do during the day but that adjustment for sleep the first night is a battle that must be won on it’s own terms. Tomorrow night will be better but tonight getting through it is just another accomplishment to break free. Once you break free you finally feel “rinsed”.

Do not drink anything 1-2 hours before going to bed and go to the bathroom before going to bed

Wear as close to skin (or as little as possible to be comfortable) as you can in the sleeping bag

Leave your sleeping bag rolled up or in it’s sack right until you go to bed. Before you crawl into your sleeping bag fluff it up and allow the insulation in the bag to expand. This allows the air to be trapped in the insulation and will keep you warm. Compressed insulation will not keep you warm.

Lay down a base material under your sleeping bag to help prevent conduction of your body heat to the ground. Use a browse bag with natural material, sleeping mat, rubber blanket, or winter rated sleeping pad/air mattress

Use a sleeping bag that is rated twenty degrees cooler than the expected lowest temperature of your trip

Wear fresh clean, dry under layer clothes and wool or warm socks to bed

Wear a sock hat/beenie/toboggan/night cap to bed

Boil water, put in a well sealed bottle, cover with a sock or shirt and place at your feet of the sleeping bag as a hot water bottle

If your sleeping bag is not performing up to your comfortable temperature then line the inside of your sleeping bag with a fleece or wool blanket

Sleep with the next day’s clothing inside your sleeping bag IF you have the room and can still move freely. The trapped air inside the sleeping bag is what will keep you warm, you want to compress the insulation as little as possible for it to work

Try not to breathe inside your sleeping bag, the condensation will lead to moisture being trapped in the bag and will make you cold

If you are sweating you will feel cold, adjust the opening of the bag as needed

“The north wood does not offer welcome or respond readily to the lover of conventional luxury and the smaller comforts of living. Luxury is there, surely, but it is the luxury that rewards effort, and privation, and toil. It is the comfort of food and warmth and dry clothes after a day of endurance–a day of wet, and dragging weariness and bitter chill. It is the bliss of reaching, after long, toilsome travel, a place where you can meet the trout–the splendid, full-grown wild trout, in his native home, knowing that you will not find a picnic party on every brook and a fisherman behind every tree. Finally, it is the preciousness of isolation, the remoteness from men who dig up and tear down and destroy, who set whistles to tooting and bells to jingling–who shriek themselves hoarse in the market place and make the world ugly and discordant, and life a short and fevered span in which the soul has a chance to become no more than a feeble and crumpled thing. And if that kind of a soul pleases you, don’t go to the woods. It will be only a place of mosquitoes, and general wetness, and discomfort. You won’t care for it. You will hate it. But if you are willing to get wet and stay wet–to get cold and stay cold–to be bruised , and scuffed, and bitten–to be hungry and thirsty and to have your muscles strained and sore from unusual taxation: if you will welcome all these things, not once, but many times for the sake of moments of pure triumph and that larger luxury which come with the comfort of the camp and the conquest of the wilderness, then go! The wilderness will welcome you, and teach you, and take you to its heart. And you will find your own soul there; the discovery will be worth while!” – The Tent Dwellers, A.B. Paine, 1908

Benefits of Camping, From “The Camper’s Handbook”, by Thomas Hiram Holding. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent,1908 pg. 13

• It teaches him no small measure of self -reliance.

• It gives him a new incentive to independence.

• It opens to him the possibility of personal resource.

• It teaches him patience when circumstances are adverse.

• It opens to him a new pleasure.

• It gives him greater freedom.

• It affords rest of mind.

• It is recreative. Repeated in another form, it is recreating.

• It keeps old men young.

• It gives younger people experience that they would not have.

• It makes men more tolerant of the domestic life.

• It gives man the power to manage and develop his personal force to overcome obstacles.

• It teaches him patience and tolerance with other people.

• It takes him away from the toils of business.

• It opens to a man new society.

• It affords him an opportunity of cutting the society he does not want.

• It revives his taste and love of the country.

• It enables him to wear out old clothes, for none other are comfortable in camp, and none other become the camp.

• It enables a man to get away from his family; or his family to get away from him for a spell.

• It allows a man to introduce his family to a new, and rough, and innocent pleasure.

• It produces in him a new individualism – for the better.

• It has a tendency to the extension of his geographical knowledge.

• It gives him a pleasure that has no vitiating influence.

• It helps to harden his physical nature.

• It adds to his physical activity, and therefore tends to the lengthening of his life.

• It is an educational force, which would take a chapter to describe.