LOCALadk Magazine
Issue link: https://localadkmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1221978
Spring 2020 LOCALadk Magazine 59 LOCALadk These days when we talk about camping in the Adiron- dacks, almost ever yone thinks of sleeping in a tent. Yet when we read diaries, books, magazine and newspaper articles about pre- Civil War wilderness trips to the Adirondacks we find most early sporting tourists did not use tents. First-hand reports of early Adirondack camping trips usually refer to sleeping in a "shanty." A variety of simple, homemade shel- ters fit this general description, but by far the most common camping shelter used by early Adirondack tourists was the open camp, or lean-to. Lean-to structures have been used for shelter since prehis- toric times. The most basic lean-to consists of nothing more than a slanted roof somehow held high enough to crawl un- der to get out of the weather. During the early nineteenth centur y Adirondack settlers often built simple lean-to shel- ters for their overnight hunting or fishing trips. This crude shelter with a slanted roof open on one or more sides could be constructed quickly with no other tools but an ax. It had two poles in front made from stout tree branches, often with a fork at the top. These poles supported a roof of woven saplings that reached diagonally to the ground in the rear. The roof was typically covered with sheets of bark stripped from nearby evergreen trees. Smaller branches of balsam, cedar, hemlock, or spruce were laid thickly on the ground inside the camp to provide a fragrant mattress. An Adirondack guide could construct a simple lean-to in an hour or two. If the construction was skillful, an open camp could last for two or three years, although the bark roof would need frequent repairs. A lean-to could be almost any size, accommodating from one to a dozen or more campers. A small number of sporting tourists began to regularly vis- it to the Adirondacks in the 1830s. Invariably these visitors hired a local man to act as their hunting and fishing guide. One of the guide's primar y tasks was to arrange for shelter. Quite naturally, guides frequently used open camps they had already built. The guide not only provided shelter for each night, he did most of the other heavy work. The visitors helped carr y the food and their own gear, but the guide set the course, rowed the boat, carried the boat, carried most of the gear, cooked the food, and located the best fishing and hunting. From Open Camp to Adirondack Lean-to By Edward Pitts