NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

TIME WAS, and not long past, when the very word "camping" carried presupposition of sleeping in a tent. Since prehistoric darkness, some form of tent has served man as shelter during his migrations and farings forth to hunt and to fight. In consequence the tent stands as an inherited symbol of high adventure, especially to youth. Naturally then, when on his first camping expedition, a youthful reincarnation of Daniel Boone or Marco Polo finds to his horror that he is expected to sleep in other than a tent, cynicism rears its ugly head, and today's generation is forever convinced that it was born too late.

Probably organized camping must take the lion's share of responsibility for having undermined tentage as the supreme facility for sheltering campers. This institution has had opportunity to observe the high cost of tents (maintenance and replacement considered) and the difficulties of screening them against insects. Conclusion is very generally reached that the "wooden tent" has enough advantages in economy and health to outweigh the thrill of sleeping under canvas.

Some camping leaders will not lightly sacrifice the psychological advantage of the tent and will favor using it for sleeping purposes in spite of its overburden of cost. A tent so used should have a raised platform with flooring tightly fitted. It is pointed out that the actual dimensions of tents often vary by several inches from their nominal size. Hence it is unwise to build tent platforms until the tents are on hand, in order that the platforms may be custom-tailored to a snug fit. Well-braced side rails will contribute to fixity of form and will help in anchoring the canvas.

There is always inclination to try to eliminate the shortcomings of the tent by this change or that addition. This leads to an anomalous fabrication, half-tent and half-cabin, which usually succeeds in rolling into one all the disadvantages, rather than the advantages, of both kinds of shelter and in appearing to be a cross between a corncrib and a cricket box of heroic proportions. Unless the tent is accepted for exactly what it is, the alternative of an out-and-out wood structure is urged.

As a usual thing, sleeping units in camps must accommodate the following different groups: campers, staff members, and those termed collectively the help, but more accurately defined as employes who are not members of the leadership staff. The help will be housed somewhat to themselves within convenient reach of the dining lodge. Quarters for the staff will be at a location so central that general supervision of the camp can be maintained at all hours. The living quarters of the doctor or nurse in charge of the infirmary are necessarily within that building, as has been said. If the camp is planned for young children or youth groups, living quarters for one or more counselors or leaders will be provided in each group of campers' cabins. This practice may or may not prevail in the camp planned for family use.

As to sleeping cabins for the campers themselves, there are material differences between those designed for families and those designed for age groups. Let us consider the two types and their basic structural differences before sleeping accommodations for staff and help are explored in detail.

THE HISTORY of group camping reveals a continual reduction in the recommended number of campers housed in one sleeping unit. Actual experience with age groups in camp, particularly younger children, shows that as "dormitory" groups were made smaller, many behavior problems disappeared and the campers were happier. There are many children and older persons too who find it difficult to adjust themselves to many roommates. It was found that eight campers in a cabin was better than twelve, that six was a still better-sized group, and that four seemed best of all. Because adjustments to camp mates and camp life are more easily made in the small group and because noises, disturbances, and problems of discipline all decrease proportionately as the size of the group, and therefore less supervision is required, it is urged, when campers are over 12 years of age, that not more than four be housed in a sleeping cabin. For children under 12 it is recommended that the cabins be planned with two rooms accommodating four campers each and with a separate room for the counselor between.

Wherever groups of small children are brought together in camp, the sleeping cabins, for reasons of health, safety, and comfort, should comply with United States Public Health Service recommendations. These call for six feet between side rails and four feet between end rails of beds, and ban double-deck bunks. In cabins or dormitories that accommodate more than four young persons, the six-foot spacing can be reduced if well-fitted canvas or light wood barriers are placed between the beds, and if in so doing the cubic content requirements of local health agencies having jurisdiction are met. If the campers are adult or housed as families, it is considered allowable to substitute the space and content regulations of directly jurisdictional agencies for those of the Public Health Service.

In sleeping cabins planned for summer use only, as is generally the case, window openings may be large. The solid walls need not extend more than three feet above the floor, from which level to the plate line screened openings should be provided. Some method must be contrived for closing them in stormy weather. It may be done by means of canvas curtains, wire glass-cloth on frames neither too light nor too heavy, or by solid wood shutters. Canvas curtains flap in the wind, become mildewed if rolled when wet, and will be found to entail high maintenance costs even though mildewproof canvas is used. If not subjected to abusive treatment, wire glass-cloth mounted on sufficiently rigid frames should last for several years. Because this material admits light, it is superior to the canvas curtain and the solid wood shutter, both of which leave the cabin entirely in darkness when they are closed. Everything considered, the most desirable solution would seem to be glass-cloth storm closures interchangeable with wood batten winter closures. The initial cost of glazed sash in camp buildings is high. And when the buildings are remotely situated and deserted out of season, glass breakage is often considerable with consequent high maintenance costs. It is recommended that the use of glazed windows in camp structures be limited to those buildings planned for year-round use.

As to equipment, sleeping cabins should provide individual clothes closets for the personal belongings of each camper to insure a neat and orderly cabin at all times. These closets may be simple three-sided affairs with canvas curtains across the front. One or two shelves at the bottom or the top will serve to store the camper's small belongings; a rod or coat hooks will accommodate coat hangers. Building these closets in the center of the ends or sides of the cabins will help to insure the cots being placed in conformity with the United States Public Health Service space regulations.

It seems hardly necessary to recommend that all doors of sleeping cabins should open outward as a safety measure in case of fire or other emergency when young children, especially, would be panic-stricken. A small porch at the cabin entrance will protect the doorway in wet weather and offer a place where campers before entering can clean their shoes of mud. If large enough, the porch is a pleasant place for the cabin occupants to sit outdoors, weather and insects permitting.

When it is expected that an organized camp will be occupied part-time by families and part-time by age groups, the cabin just described as desirable for the latter will meet fairly acceptably the needs of a family. If, on the other hand, a full-season family use of the camp is projected, a cabin more favorable to family occupancy can be devised. First of all, this would be less open. A group of family cabins will be inhabited by persons of both sexes and all ages, and more privacy for the family than would be accorded an age group of either sex is very much in order. To this end the amount of screened wall can be reduced by half. Furthermore, it is desirable to divide the family cabin into two rooms, for conceivably a family camp will not operate on so fixed a schedule as other camps, and the children and adults of a family will retire at different hours. It is also proposed that cabins be of several sizes, sleeping four, five, and six persons, when strictly family use is anticipated.

The economy basic in organized camping, founded on the principle of making its benefits accessible to the greatest number, will oppose anything more elaborate in family cabins than has just been described. True enough a fireplace, a living room, and a screened porch would be desirable additions. But these, accompanied by that inevitable other addition an increased camping fee, resulting in reduction in the broad field it is hoped to serve by organized camps are unjustified.

SLEEPING QUARTERS FOR STAFF MEMBERS in camps operated for age groups must be widely scattered to effect a proper supervision. In family camps this need is less imperative or may be lacking altogether. There are staff members in age group camps the counselors or leaders—who are on duty 24 hours a day, being expected to sleep with one eye and one ear open.

The tendency in camp staffing is toward more counselors to a given number of campers than formerly. This has resulted in more varied programs as well as more personal attention. In present practice the camper-to-counselor ratio probably averages around eight to one. Doubtless fewer campers per counselor is the situation where the campers are very young or physically handicapped and more, where the campers are more mature.

The younger the campers, the closer at hand should be the counselors' sleeping quarters. Hence, when the group is made up of very young children, the type of cabin previously described, having the leaders' room flanked on either side by rooms accommodating four campers so that all are under one roof, is desirable. When older children constitute the group, a detached cabin will serve as living quarters for the counselors. It may house three, but two is better. Its proper location is central among the campers supervised by the counselors. Its construction will be similar to that of the campers' cabins, and it will be of a size that permits spacing beds at least as far apart as recommended for campers' cabins. It will be equipped with a closet for each occupant and will be arranged to receive two or three chairs and a table for use as a desk.

In the typical camp there will be need for a cabin with sleeping quarters for the director and other members of the central staff who may be off duty after taps. It is sometimes advantageous to include sleeping accommodations in this cabin for one or two guests, and perhaps a living room or lounge with a fireplace which can be used by other staff members during their leisure hours. Often there will be purpose in building it so that short-term winter use is possible by an arrangement that permits one bedroom to be converted to use as a kitchen. Otherwise, a summer construction, a little less exposed and somewhat more spacious than recommended for counselors' and campers' cabins, is in order. The camp staff, in camp all summer long and composed usually of older people, is entitled to a little more room, privacy, and comfort than the campers will require.

Employes' living quarters should be apart from those of the campers and staff members, yet should be located convenient to the central washhouse, which incorporates their toilet and bathing facilities, and to the dining lodge, in which their work centers. There is advantage too in locating the building that houses help where it will control the service road to the kitchen wing of the dining lodge, as some supplies may be delivered at hours when none of the kitchen crew is on duty.

Size of the help's quarters will be determined by the policies and type of service adopted in the kitchen and dining room, the extent of camper participation in the operation of the dining lodge, and the possibility of employment of some day help in the neighborhood who will return home at night. It is wise to plan one room for a couple. The building will usually be of summer construction, perhaps less open than the campers' cabins.

Anticipated short-term winter use may warrant a better construction in either this building or the staff's cabin, or even in both. When it is a case of one or the other and not both, then such construction and use seem the more logical in connection with the staff's quarters. In some camp lay-outs it will be chosen to duplicate counselors' cabins to house the help. Toilet and bath incorporated in staff's quarters and help's quarters are, of course, convenient, but scarcity of funds usually dictates omission of them.

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