The Forest | Page 2

memories.
There are said to be sixty-eight roads to heaven, of which but one is the
true way, although here and there a by-path offers experimental variety
to the restless and bold. The true way for the man in the woods to attain
the elusive best of his wilderness experience is to go as light as possible,
and the by-paths of departure from that principle lead only to the
slightly increased carrying possibilities of open-water canoe trips, and
permanent camps.
But these prove to be not very independent side paths, never diverging
so far from the main road that one may dare hope to conceal from a
vigilant eye that he is not going light.
To go light is to play the game fairly. The man in the woods matches
himself against the forces of nature. In the towns he is warmed and fed
and clothed so spontaneously and easily that after a time he perforce
begins to doubt himself, to wonder whether his powers are not
atrophied from disuse. And so, with his naked soul, he fronts the
wilderness. It is a test, a measuring of strength, a proving of his
essential pluck and resourcefulness and manhood, an assurance of
man's highest potency, the ability to endure and to take care of himself.
In just so far as he substitutes the ready-made of civilization for the
wit-made of the forest, the pneumatic bed for the balsam boughs, in just
so far is he relying on other men and other men's labour to take care of
him. To exactly that extent is the test invalidated. He has not proved a
courteous antagonist, for he has not stripped to the contest.
To go light is to play the game sensibly. For even when it is not so
earnest, nor the stake so high, a certain common-sense should take the
place on a lower plane of the fair-play sense on the higher. A great
many people find enjoyment in merely playing with nature. Through
vacation they relax their minds, exercise mildly their bodies, and
freshen the colours of their outlook on life. Such people like to live
comfortably, work little, and enjoy existence lazily. Instead of
modifying themselves to fit the life of the wilderness, they modify their

city methods to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to strip to the
contest, for contest there is none, and Indian packers are cheap at a
dollar a day. But even so the problem of the greatest comfort--defining
comfort as an accurate balance of effort expended to results
obtained--can be solved only by the one formula. And that formula is,
again, _go light_, for a superabundance of paraphernalia proves always
more of a care than a satisfaction. When the woods offer you a thing
ready made, it is the merest foolishness to transport that same thing a
hundred miles for the sake of the manufacturer's trademark.
I once met an outfit in the North Woods, plodding diligently across
portage, laden like the camels of the desert. Three Indians swarmed
back and forth a half-dozen trips apiece. An Indian can carry over two
hundred pounds. That evening a half-breed and I visited their camp and
examined their outfit, always with growing wonder. They had
tent-poles and about fifty pounds of hardwood tent pegs--in a wooded
country where such things can be had for a clip of the axe. They had a
system of ringed iron bars which could be so fitted together as to form
a low open grill on which trout could be broiled--weight twenty pounds,
and split wood necessary for its efficiency. They had air mattresses and
camp-chairs and oil lanterns. They had corpulent duffel bags apiece
that would stand alone, and enough changes of clothes to last out
dry-skinned a week's rain. And the leader of the party wore the
wrinkled brow of tribulation. For he had to keep track of everything
and see that package number twenty-eight was not left, and that
package number sixteen did not get wet; that the pneumatic bed did not
get punctured, and that the canned goods did. Beside which, the
caravan was moving at the majestic rate of about five miles a day.
Now tent-pegs can always be cut, and trout broiled beautifully by a
dozen other ways, and candle lanterns fold up, and balsam can be laid
in such a manner as to be as springy as a pneumatic mattress, and
camp-chairs, if desired, can be quickly constructed with an axe, and
clothes can always be washed or dried as long as fire burns and water
runs, and any one of fifty other items of laborious burden could have
been ingeniously and quickly substituted by any one of the Indians. It
was not that we concealed a bucolic scorn of effete but solid comfort;