Note C — Chapter III

The use of ardent spirits in the woods ought never to be allowed by either sportsmen or guides. There is enough stimulant and health in the pure air, the piney woods, and clear cold water of the streams, to satisfy any one, while the indulgence often places the sportsman’s life in jeopardy. The awkward turn of the paddle in swift water, or the careless handling of a gun by your partially intoxicated guide, may at any moment bring disaster to your canoe or death to yourself, while the selection of a guide should always be a matter of the greatest importance, as he has the faculty of making your camp-life happy or miserable. A friend of the author started to camp in the Adirondacks sometime since, but discovering in his guide’s “kit” a bottle of liquor, and, being unable to obtain the refusal of its use, took the fellow a three days’ tramp back to the settlement, and hired another guide, rather than take his chances with the first one. Scientific analysis has long since exploded the health giving properties of ardent spirits, and in Arctic explorations the line has been drawn between the vitality of men who drank water or coffee. As regards using stimulants in the woods, I say in the language of Mark Twain—“don’t! DON’T!! DON’T!!!”