Fifty years ago, when I was 11 and growing up in Appleton, Wis., our Boy Scout patrol in the depths of winter would head to nearby Center Swamp to camp. We carried lots of gear in canvas backpacks and on toboggans, down country roads and across fields, until we reached the woods, where we pitched tents in snow.
We wore "high-top" leather boots, cotton long johns, jeans, and layers of sweatshirts–all of which kept in more wet and cold than they kept out. Of course, we had fun, but we also spent too much time in front of steamy campfires just to keep warm.
We didn't know better. Not too many people were winter camping, climbing, or cross-country skiing in those days. Our "Scout Field Book" in 1957 didn't even mention winter camping as an outdoor-adventure option. It offered no warnings about poor clothing choices, hypothermia, or even frostbite. My sleeping bag also was cotton–flimsy at that–but I at least had the good sense to bring old army blankets that my father had brought home after the war.
The army blankets were a clue.
Sometime in my late teens I entered the local Army-Navy Store, which seemed to take winter survival quite seriously. On the shelves were the wool blankets but also waterproof mittens that reached well up the forearms; wool shirts and jackets; and rows of the white, rubberized, insulated "Mickey Mouse" boots (so named because the GIs thought they looked silly) that were a staple in Korea. I bought a down mummy bag, thinking it the ultimate in modern, lightweight sleep gear.
Army surplus stores in those days were the best places to shop for gear. There was equipment from both World War II and the Korean War, and with the Cold War in full bloom, American companies were cranking out the military goods. Ever since Napoleon's defeat in Russia, military strategists understood how soldiers needed decent food and equipment to perform well in winter. That was the lesson in the Battle of the Bulge and in Korea in 1952–when the Army began developing its U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass.
These days anyone who wants to venture out in cold climates has an array of winter-friendly equipment to consider: lightweight nylon mountain tents; aluminum-framed packs; "breathable" rain gear; polypropylene and fleece garments; freeze-dried food. The Natick center, the Army's chief research center for the feeding, clothing, and sheltering of troops, has its imprint on virtually all of this.
Chicken casserole anyone? Photo by Tracy Powell
