Knapsacks and Ditty-Bags | Woodcraft

Published: July 10, 2023, 7:08 p.m.

Tonight, we\u2019ll read the opening to \u201cWoodcraft\u201d published by George Washington \u201cNessmuk\u201d Sears. Sears was a sportswriter for Forest and Stream magazine in the 1880s and an early conservationist. His stories popularized self-guided canoe camping and what is today called ultralight camping or ultralight backpacking.\n\nGrowing up in Massachusetts, he took his pen name from a Native American who had befriended him in early childhood. A period of factory labor while still a child left him with a fondness for the writing of Charles Dickens. At nineteen he signed on for a three-year voyage on a whaler headed for the South Pacific; it was the same year that Herman Melville shipped out of the same port bound for the same whaling grounds.\n\u2014 read by V \u2014\nSign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to\xa0snoozecast.com/plus!\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices