The brush camp is shaped like an ordinary “A” tent.  The ridge pole should be about 8 ft. long and supported by crotched uprights about 6 ft. from the ground.  Often the ridge pole can be laid from one small tree to another.  Avoid tall trees on account of lightning.  Eight or ten long poles are then laid slanting against the ridge pole on each side.  Cedar or hemlock boughs make the best thatch for the brush camp.  They should be piled up to a thickness of a foot or more over the slanting poles and woven in and out to keep them from slipping.  Then a number of poles should be laid over them to prevent them from blowing away.  In woods where there is plenty of bark available in large slabs, the bark lean-to is a quickly constructed and serviceable camp.  The ridge pole is set up like that of the brush camp.  Three or four other poles are laid slanting to the ground on one side only.  The ends of these poles should be pushed into the earth and fastened with crotched sticks.  Long poles are then laid crossways of these slanting poles, and the whole can be covered with brush as in the case of the brush camp or with strips of bark laid overlapping each other like shingles.  Where bark is used, nails are necessary to hold it in place.  Bark may also be used for a wigwam and it can be held in place by a cord wrapped tightly around the whole structure, running spiral-wise from the ground to the peak.  In the early summer, the bark can easily be removed from most trees by making two circular cuts around the trunk and joining them with another vertical cut.  The bark is easily pried off with an ax, and if laid on the ground under heavy stones, will dry flat.  Sheets of bark, 6 ft. long and 2 or 3 ft. wide, are a convenient size for camp construction.

The small boughs and twigs of hemlock, spruce, and cedar, piled 2 or 3 ft. deep and covered with blankets, make the best kind of a camp bed.  For a permanent camp, a bunk can be made by laying small poles close together across two larger poles on a rude framework easily constructed.  Evergreen twigs or dried leaves are piled on this, and a blanket or a piece of canvas stretched across and fastened down to the poles at the sides.  A bed like this is soft and springy and will last through an ordinary camping season without renewal.  A portable cot that does not take up much room in the camp outfit is made of a piece of heavy canvas 40 in. wide and 6 ft. long.  Four-inch hems are sewed in each side of the canvas, and when the camp is pitched, a 2-in. pole is run through each hem and the ends of the pole supported on crotched sticks.

[Illustration:  Camp Details]