original article: Ford Times August 1954 | text & photo: Mrs. George S. Dunham, Chairman, National Camp Committee Girls Scouts of the U.S.A.
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Early last spring, the Girl Scouts of the U. S. A. embarked on an unusual educational project known as a Camping Caravan. Using a Ford Country Sedan, two officials of the Girl Scout national staff set out on a three-year tour of the U. S. to teach the principles of primitive camping to Scout leaders all over the country.
“Primitive camping” is the name given to a kind of camping in which low cost and simplicity are the guiding motives. It is a kind of camping suitable to all climates, seasons, and terrains. Instead of depending on such physical installations as cabins, fireplaces, and plumbing, it stresses the kind of equipment that campers can make themselves. The purpose of the Camping Caravan is to teach Girl Scout leaders how to train girls to make their own primitive camping equipment and use it properly.
Examples of this equipment, which was developed by the Girl Scout organization for the express purpose of bringing camping within the reach of everyone, are shown in the pictures above and below.
The altar fire and the reflector demonstrate two of the many ways of cooking in the absence of stoves or fireplaces. An altar fire provides a safety element by limiting the fire’s area and making it possible to cook without stooping over flames. The reflector, a device commonly used in the pre-cook-stove era, reflects heat for baking and roasting.
Among the techniques of primitive camping is the avoidance of lumber and nails. As the pictures illustrate, the campers are liberal in the use of rope and saplings. By lashing their self-made equipment to trees, they are able to avoid the damage caused by nails, and by making as many things as possible from cut saplings, they avoid the need for carrying items from one camp to the next. Wood for lashing is gathered where woods need thinning or lower branches should be cut. To avoid danger to camper or damage to trees, saws often are used instead of hatchets or axes.
The director of the Caravan, Miss Catherine T. Hammett, who is president of the American Camping Association, has designed plywood chests with rope handles to hold equipment. A wooden tool chest contains all the tools needed for primitive camping, such as saws, hammer, pliers, pruning shears, hatchet and axe. Other items which are stored in their own home-made chests are tents and groundcloths, rucksacks and bedrolls, cooking utensils, books. A galvanized garbage can serves as a marauder-proof food storage depot or a capacious water-tank. The Country Sedan comfortably holds all this primitive camping gear for a team of eight campers.
In back of the Camping Caravan and its educational program is a major tenet of Girl Scout philosophy—that camping provides girls with ideal conditions for developing resourcefulness and good citizenship. The organization also looks on primitive camping as a constructive parent-child activity, In which whole families can make plans over winter, prepare much of their gear, then spend happy, low-cost camping vacations.
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