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Under the Stars
by Dan White
c.2016, Henry Holt
$28.00 / $39.00 Canada
402 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
Away from any lights, the stars seem to triple in number.
They are closer to the earth, too, and shinier. When you’re
outdoors, you also hear things you don’t hear at home, and
once you’ve read Under the Stars by Dan White,
you’ll wonder why you don’t go camping more often.
Although, certainly, people took to the wilderness even
before Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden, that iconic
book is where Dan White starts his story.
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In college, White found a copy of Walden in an
abandoned house, read it, and was inspired. Thoreau had
famously eschewed civilization in favor of living a “simple
life” in the woods; after reading the book, White went
camping himself and got lost.
After Thoreau’s time, Victorians took up camping as a “fad.”
The wealthiest of them paid camping “guides” (basically, a
woodland waiter) to show them the wilderness and get them
around without fuss; White learned that you can still hire
those kinds of guides, if roughing it without a cup of tea
isn’t your cup of tea.
Native Americans, he says, were “the United States’ original
campers,” but over decades, other groups have been notable
outdoors-lovers (or not). In the late 1800s, women were
discouraged from partaking in and enjoying the wilderness,
but they did it anyhow – often clad in long dresses,
button-shoes and whalebone corsets. While historians point
out the “essential” need for it in the past, African
Americans supposedly “don’t camp,” although White found an
organization that takes inner-city youth on camping trips to
introduce them to camping activities and nature.
A loincloth-wearing hoaxer inspired White to try “naked
survival” camping (which went “very well until I sat on a
yellow jacket nest.”). He went “car camping” like the
Jazz-Age Babies, and was accosted by marmots. He tried
“Leave No Trace” camping, in which he had to carry out
everything he carried in (yes, even that). He went
glamping and RVing, and in the end, memories of his father
explained for him his obsession.
Nope, nope, nope.
That was my first impression of Under the Stars. I
was expecting a history of camping but that was lacking in
the first couple dozen pages of this book. It was more a
biography of outdoorsmen, and humorous bits about wilderness
shenanigans.
But I persevered because, well, that’s my job. And I was
glad I did, once I realized that author Dan White was
actually teaching me things while he was making me snort.
His bumbling, therapist-discouraging, self-conscious forays
into the outdoor life were pretty funny and hey, there
was the history of camping I wanted, all tucked into
crevasses, under logs, and beneath the rocks of White’s
narrative. This book turned out to be fun, and more
addicting than a pile of s’mores.
And so, if you’re looking for a cultural history of camping,
it’s in Under the Stars but not as overtly as you may
want. If you’re looking for a good few stories on why we pay
mortgage and go sleep outside anyhow, though, this book gets
four stars.
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