Vintage camping in Michigan

[Mike Leslie]

https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/06/vintage_camping_photos_michiga.html?utm_source=am-newsletter&utm_medium=headline-link&utm_campaign=test&utm_content=related

These were interesting photos mostly tents, but some vehicles that a tent attaches to. I thought some of you might enjoy a look.

I remember camping in an  old Army tent in the 50s. My parents would just find a spot  along a lake or steam, and we would camp.  When we traded-up and got a cabin tent with a _floor_ we were really "living"!  And sometimes we even stayed at a real camping park!  ;D

Mike Leslie

 

[Back2PA]

No slideouts, no ACs and, looking at that Covered Wagon Co. trailer, no weight distributing hitches! What were they thinking? 

(thanks for sharing)

 

[ELeland]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[SpencerPJ]

Thanks for sharing.

Certainly puts all our petty complaints into perspective.  :

 

[Rene T]

No slideouts, no ACs and, looking at that Covered Wagon Co. trailer, no weight distributing hitches! What were they thinking? 

(thanks for sharing)

And no cell phones.

 

[Back2PA]

Certainly puts all our petty complaints into perspective.  :

My king bed is hard to make
My jackknife sofa isn?t super comfortable
The fridge isn?t keeping the ice cream super hard
This spot makes it hard to level
I can?t stream Netflix on the campground WiFi
I can only take a ten minute shower with my little water heater
There?s only one bar signal on my phone and only 3G

 

[John From Detroit]

Michigan has a long history of camping.. Tahquamenon falls (lower falls campground) state park used to have a genuine Tee-Pee set up (Park property)

however since Wendell was "Red-lined" (his job eliminated) I do not know if it's been kept up.

Funny story related.. Remember years ago the TV Public Service ad with the Native American in full Native dress walking along and seeing some debris in a river he is crying.

Well... I realized from his dress (And by the way confirmed it with a genuine native american) he was/is a member of a Forest Tribe. A "Tee-Pee" dweller.  Not a plains indian (Who I spoke with) they tend to build Pueblos.

THe Tee-Pee dwellers were nomadic. They took all they could from the land. Polluted the blazes out of it. Folded their tents and moved on.    Absolutely the WRONG native American for that tv SPOT.

And as I said I confirmed all this with a Navajo when I was in Pace AZ.

 

[NewmanRacing]

Iron Eyes Cody was his name.

Keep America Beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=j7OHG7tHrNM

 

[Back2PA]

Polluted the blazes out of it. Folded their tents and moved on.   
And as I said I confirmed all this with a Navajo when I was in Pace AZ.

Not necessarily questioning but curious how pre-industrial native Americans could "pollute the blazes" out of an area - with what?

Intuitive as it may seem that a Native American would be a solid source on other Native Americans, some of the various tribes were mortal enemies of or at least looked down upon other tribes with disdain. If that was the case here might not be as solid of a source as one might think. And I think, in a general sense, that pre-settler Native Americans were much more caring about the world in which they lived than, again in a general sense, the races that followed - this was the point of the commercial made by Iron Eyes Cody.

And Iron Eyes Cody was not Native American, he was an Italian-American actor who portrayed Native Americans in movies

 

[John From Detroit]

What could they pollute with.. Lots of stuff. Burned wood. Human waste. Dead animals. to name but 3. Native American culture was a bit more advanced than most "Pale faces" think oh they did not have tin cans or plastic bottles. but they plenty to pollute with.

But more than that the nomadic tribes would take all the land had to offer. Rich, Fertal land was farmed to exhaustion, NO rotation of crops or any other means to keep it in production. Hunt animals to extinction (local only) so you had to move on to fresh huting and farming lands.

While it is true the land recovered, since the effects were fairly local. Recovery was relatively fast compared to what we do today.. It was still the same thing.

As I said the desert tribs build structures that have lasted in many cases a hundred years or more.  So they took care of the land. Lived in harmony with it way more than ther forest nomadic tribes.

But you have to do some serious digging to find that level of information.

Recently received a package (has nothing to do with this) from an outfit I belong to.. It was my 50 year membership pin..... Well... When I did my research into the difference in teh tribes.. That was about my first year of that membership.. or 50 years ago.

 

[PopPop51]

Gotta love the 1960 Plymouth Valiant station wagon.

In the car museum at the old Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, there's the early camping trailer in the attached photo:

And on our way to Coeur d'Alene we met this Model A. Its owners were on their way home from a car show, about 100 miles from home. The car is vintage, the trailer is home-built and not obviously not vintage. They said they'd been camping in the trailer for the past few nights.
I'm surprised it didn't overheat with that box o'stuff in front of the radiator. Also wouldn't want to get caught in a rainstorm.

 

[darsben]

What could they pollute with.. Lots of stuff. Burned wood. Human waste. Dead animals. to name but 3. Native American culture was a bit more advanced than most "Pale faces" think oh they did not have tin cans or plastic bottles. but they plenty to pollute with.

But more than that the nomadic tribes would take all the land had to offer. Rich, Fertal land was farmed to exhaustion, NO rotation of crops or any other means to keep it in production. Hunt animals to extinction (local only) so you had to move on to fresh huting and farming lands.

While it is true the land recovered, since the effects were fairly local. Recovery was relatively fast compared to what we do today.. It was still the same thing.

As I said the desert tribs build structures that have lasted in many cases a hundred years or more.  So they took care of the land. Lived in harmony with it way more than ther forest nomadic tribes.

But you have to do some serious digging to find that level of information.

Recently received a package (has nothing to do with this) from an outfit I belong to.. It was my 50 year membership pin..... Well... When I did my research into the difference in teh tribes.. That was about my first year of that membership.. or 50 years ago.

And until the white man invaded there would have been plenty to go around with the nomadic lifestyle. The white mans appearance put a severe strain on the wildlife resources and bison and other species were hunted BY THE WHITE FOLKS to extinction.
Am I blaming the invaders? NO! They and the native Americans did not know any better but we cannot judge them as we were not there. They lived as they lived.  But with the Native American lifestyle they hunted what was in the area and abundant and took what they needed for their tribe mostly. The white people slaughtered multitudes of Bison for their hides only leaving the meat to mostly rot in the field (again They and the native Americans did not know any better but we cannot judge them as we were not there).  And that is the difference.

 

[Ernie n Tara]

The difference is purely population density. Yes! There were wasteful practices by both, but the environment is resilient if given  time to recover. Evrn today much of this country survives just fine.

Ernie