Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart

Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart

2020 Reprint of the 1921 Two Volume Expanded Edition. Nearly 900 pages with numerous illustrations. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. The first volume was originally published in 1906 as The Book of Camping and Woodcraft. Kephart expanded the work into two volumes in 1916. This is the expanded edition in its entirety. Camping and Woodcraft ranks sixth among the ten best-selling sporting books of all time. The subtitle is: A Handbook for Vacation Campers and for Travelers in the Wilderness, and it covers all aspects of this experience encyclopedically. A standard manual for campers and a veritable outdoor enthusiast's bible for over four decades, this book reflects Horace Kephart's practical knowledge and covers, in depth, any problem that campers might confront.

Contents: Volume I: Camping. Vacation time -- Outfitting -- Tents for fixed camps -- Furniture, tools, and utensils for fixed camps -- Tents for shifting camps -- Types of light tents -- Light camp equipment -- Camp bedding -- Clothing -- Personal kits -- Provisions -- Camp making -- The camp-fire -- Pests of the woods -- Dressing and keeping game and fish -- Camp cookery, meats -- Camp cookery, game -- Camp cookery, fish and shellfish -- Camp cookery, cured meats, etc., eggs -- Camp cookery, breadstuffs and cereals -- Camp cookery, vegetables, soups -- Beverages and desserts -- Cook's miscellany -- Index --

Volume II: Woodcraft. Woodcraft -- Getting lost, bivouacs -- Pathfinding -- Nature's guide posts -- Blazes, survey lines, use of the compass --Route sketching, mapping, measuring -- Trips afoot -- Packs for pedestrians -- How to walk, a hunter's pack, going alone -- Concentrated foods -- Marksmanship in the woods -- Axemanship, qualities and utilization of wood -- Tomahawk, shelters, axeman's camps, caches, masked camps -- Cabin building, rustic furniture -- Bark utensils, bast ropes and twine, root and vine cordage, withes and splits -- Knots, hitches and lashings -- Trophies, pelts, buckskin, and rawhide -- Tanning skins, other animal products -- Cave exploration -- Bee hunting -- Edible plants of the wilderness -- Living off the country, in extremis -- Accidents and emergencies: their backwoods treatment -- Index.

Kephart lived in the Great Smoky Mountains and spent most of his time in the wild. Consequently, he became an expert on all aspects of camp life from living in a semi-permanent lean-to to traveling with only the bare essentials in a backpack. More than simply a hunting or fishing guide, Kephart's book covers a wide variety of subjects from how to dress game and fish to how to shoot accurately. Every chapter is filled with tips that remain useful even after many years of improvements in equipment and technology.

Horace Kephart (1862-1931) worked as a librarian at the famed Mercantile Library in St. Louis before moving to the mountains.