A hamper of most promising dimensions
A hamper of most promising dimensions
Backcountry menus
I’m writing in a quiet library, everything is lush and green outside, I’m not eating enough strawberries, my baby starts solid foods this week, breastfeeding is weird with a cold. It’s July!
A hamper of most promising dimensions
I’m comparing the backcountry menus packed by Pauline Johnson in the 1890s, Esther Keyser in the 1930s, and myself for the past couple of summers.
Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) traveled by train to Muskoka to trip with her pals in the 1890s. She mentions loading full hampers of food into canoes before setting off. On her various trip she eats: cold lamb, tomatoes, canned meats, hot coffee and tea, strawberry jam and buttered bread, biscuits and marmalade, and large quantities of fried bacon. She applauds when her friends bring fresh caught “salmon trout” and great strings of black bass back to camp. She detests irony lake water and celebrates when they locate a spring.
More from Pauline on backcountry eating:
“Beside their canoe on the pier stood a hamper of most promising dimensions, and after a brief council we all decided to stand by Wilson's suggestion to have dinner immediately.”
“Norton put some black bottles that had white labels on them, a pot of marmalade and a bowl of butter into the spring to get “conditioned,” and said we could easily paddle back for them before supper.”
“As I have frequently remarked to my canoeing cronies, the only time a cooking fish does smell good is right in the wilds where the fragrance of balsam and crackling campfires mingle with it to the extent of making you wish the world were made of frying fresh fish, and you would be allowed to live long enough to eat it all.”
Esther Keyser (1915-2005) started a tripping business taking clients, mostly women, to camp in Algonquin Park in the 1930s. Esther estimated she drank about 10-12 cups of tea every day. They caught fish and foraged for berries to bake with. She wrote about eating onion-potato-cabbage stew, bacon, eggs, pancakes, and oatmeal. Her campers dined on trout rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon fat. She used her largest pot in her camp kit as a reflector oven to bake coffeecake, biscuits, cornbread, even blueberry pies. Esther describes what she calls a concentrated lunch: “Crackers, cheese, dried fruit, nuts and chocolate were the key ingredients. Appropriate quantities for the size of the party were packed in small cardboard boxes or tins, placed in an old flour sack and labelled for the intended day of consumption.” Each camper carried a bandana for various uses, including portable plates to eat lunch on.
More from Esther on backcountry dining:
“Potatoes found on the island pleased Bill’s palate exceedingly and he did not eat sparingly of them! Blueberries made into a doubtful looking pie - such luxury. We had delicious dried peas. A meal for which to be thankful.” (This was written by Esther’s friend Irish in August 1937.)
“We depended on fishing because it provided our only source of fresh meat. I have been on very few trips when we weren’t successful in making fish a significant part of our diet. We usually did not have to fish for long to catch our supper. [...] Speckled trout was, and still is, my favourite fish to catch and eat.”
“Even after the advent of the concentrated lunch, I would often keep a teapot handy. We drank a lot of tea in those days. It seemed to be an addiction among rangers, fishermen, loggers and canoeists. The beginning and end of every portage had a fire ring or crudely-built fireplace equipped with a ‘lug’ pole, a pot hook and a notched stick for handling the teapot. Often a large tin can with a wire ‘bail’ affixed to it served as the teapot and was left by each user as a permanent part of these ‘tea kitchens.’ ”
I suspect I ate with greater variety than Pauline or Esther, but so far I’ve missed out on fresh lake-caught fish. Some of the things I’ve eaten: trail mix, homemade granola bars, filtered lake water with Gatorade powder, Aeropress coffee, M&Ms, stews over quinoa or rice. Last year my friend Allison diligently dehydrated eggs and veggies to make scrambled eggs. In her research she found that dehydrating eggs with polenta enhances the texture, and I’ve found myself craving the nubby texture in the year since. Other mornings a loaded instant oatmeal fueled us. My friend Anna miraculously managed to forage tiny handfuls of berries on a few portages, and brewed some tea with wild mint she plucked from the banks of Otterslide Creek. We’ve made burritos with veggies, cheese, beans and rice, expertly folded by my friend Emily. I then had burritos on a trip a month later without Emily’s folding prowess, and it was more of a burrito salad. I put together a dehydrated Thanksgiving meal from instant mashed potatoes, stuffing, dried cranberries and turkey jerky. It was salty and satisfying, and prompted everyone to share what we were grateful for around the campfire the last night of the trip.
On-the-go snacks for canoeing and hiking
I love this homemade granola bar recipe.
I discovered dried pears last summer and then was devastated to realize how hard they are to find. A real high and low. My most reliable source is picking them out of this mix.
My friend Emily is very talented and generous with a paring knife and an apple. Bring Emily anywhere and you’ll have fresh perfect apple slices.
Store bought fig bars.
For portaging, my friends and I devour Hudson Bay bars.
I wouldn’t buy these tuna pouches normally because of the garbage they produce, but they’re great for backcountry lunches with a wrap and a pickle.
Wildlife
My friend Anna pointed out Destroying Angel mushrooms on our campsite on Burnt Island Lake in Algonquin Park last August. My memory has definitely embellished the scene, but I'm going to tell it that way anyway. I remember climbing the steep hill to the thunderbox (backcountry pit toilet) with my dog Dash at dusk, and spotting the delicate mushrooms, a pearly blue, planted in layers of rust coloured pine needles. They were beautiful, ethereal, almost glowing in the dark thickly covered leaf canopy. I almost don’t want to look at the photograph I took of them because the reality will surely pale in comparison to the iridescent mushroom I remember. They are deadly, so poisonous that reading about them now I realize I should have been more protective of Dash around them. A couple of weeks ago at home I was using a souvenir tea towel from my visit to the mushroom capital of the world six years ago and saw Destroying Angel printed on the fabric. Funny how it’s been in my kitchen the whole time.
Album
“Two Anishinaabe women paddling a canoe.”
Striking photograph of two women paddling a birchbark canoe circa 1916. I notice how long the paddles are, and how deep in the canoe they are sitting. Long Lake, Ontario.
Photographer: Frederick Wilkerson Waugh, 1872-1924.
“Anna preparing to remove a canoe for use at Algonquin Park, 1955.”
A woman tying or untying a daisy printed scarf from a canoe on the roof of a car in 1955. Algonquin Park, Ontario.
Photographer: Rosemary Gilliat Eaton, 1919-2004. I recommend Rosemary’s archive on the Library and Archives Canada website, she worked as a photojournalist in Canada 1950’s-60s and there are some very cool photographs available to peruse.
Wisdom that’s working for me right now
“I took my coffee cup into the room, turned a sheet of paper into the typewriter [...], and I immediately remembered that the living room hadn’t been vacuumed for eight, maybe ten hours. [...] There, of course, were other pressures. There are always other pressures.”
Ron Carlson, Ron Carlson Writes a Story
“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. [...] The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.”
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
I love to grab a cup of tea, get comfortable and read your stories. Your stories just bring so much joy and picturesque vision to what I’m reading. Sometimes l almost feel like l’m there. I have been thinking Algonquin and Many of the islands and lakes you mention. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.