Camp bedding – how to make a browse bed

camp
Photo from “The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guidebook for Those Who Travel in the Wilderness” by Horace Kephart, 1906 p.46

Many a night camping has been spent tossing and turning. And that’s when you don’t pitch your tent over a prairie dog hole – but that’s a story for another time. I was surprised to find that there were air mattresses available in the early 1900s.

campers blow bed

The better option, it seems, and one where you don’t have to tote an air mattress around is the browse or bough bed. This excerpt comes from “The Way of the Woods: A Manual for Sportsmen in Northeastern United States and Canada” by Edward Breck, 1908.

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