Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/161

Rh square of logs with the camp fire in the middle. Here every evening the campers gathered for song and jest, and here, during the day a succession of worried-looking ladies hammered nails, discussed sunburn cures, or fried out the interior of the boots thatythat they [sic] had used in climbing the day before. Not far from the camp-fire was a bulletin board fixed against a large tree and setting forth all the official announcements, especially the successive programmes for the following day. Altogether this year's camp to most of us, even the pioneers of 1906, seemed a model of good arrangement and comfort. The President, however, has in view for next year all sorts of improvements, among them a larger mess-tent and a more satisfactory tea-tent. The tea-tent is really sacred to the ladies, which means that they use it for drying their clothing, especially overflow boots from the camp fire. This system keeps out the mere males from the use of the tea-tent as such; but in future we may see a two-roomed tent with tea in the foreground, laundry at the back, and an entrance at each end. Why not go a step further and have bell tents with electric bells in them, buttless fir boughs, and porcupines furnished with hairpins as well as needles? I am at present working on a self-balancing, three-sided plate especially adapted to club use.

The camp, as it stood, represented no small thought and toil. To begin with, the late-lingering snow had made it necessary to abandon the first site chosen and move lower down the valley. This second site had to be in the thick woods, and a clearing was made only by three days' work on the part of a gang of men loaned by the C.P.R. In addition to the work done by this gang in clearing the ground and bridging the creek, a number of members of the Club worked hard for the first four days of July in setting up tents, cutting boughs and firewood, and doing a hundred and one tiresome, necessary things. Those of us who came after