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Because of our common interests in the wildlife of the desert country Edmund C. Jaeger and I have camped together many times in the canyons of California's Colorado desert. He spends nearly all his weekends on such camping trips, generally accompanied by one or more of his students at Riverside College.
His camp routine is simple. Cooking is done over an open fire. He finds two flat rocks and lays them 15 to 18 inches apart. Across them are placed two iron bars and the fire is built beneath. I know many campers object to this procedure. It smokes up the cooking utensils. But there are always old newspapers to wipe off the soot, and later the utensils are packed in old papers in his camp kit. At every camp he digs a "gosh hole" for garbage and empty cans, and buries every bit of waste before he leaves. During the daylight hours he prowls the canyons and mesas and his interest extends from the tiniest insects to the largest of the desert mammals. At night after his simple camp chores are finished he writes up his notes from the day's exploration, and perhaps completes the line drawings which make his books so popular with lay readers. The various utensils that form Jaeger's camping equipment all have individual names that only he can remember. The wash basin, for instance, is a cast-off iron differential plate, shaped like a soldier's helmet, and is called "Corvus" because there were ravens near where he found it. The whittled wooden handle for the skillet is the Whoopy-Doop. How that name originated even he has forgotten. He has invented some savory camp dishes. One of these consists of red kidney beans cooked in gravy made of flour which has been browned in oil, with tomato sauce added. At the time he invented this concoction he was on a collecting trip with Dr. Stillman Berry of Redlands, seeking desert snails. Dr. Berry had just discovered a new species of snail which he said would be called "Avawatzica" after the Avawatz mountains near which the men were camped. Later at dinner Dr. Berry asked Jaeger what he proposed to call his new bean dish. The answer was "Avawatzica, of course!" Since Jaeger goes camping nearly every weekend throughout the year, he has reduced his camping technique to a simplified art. He has removed the entire back seat of his car and cut through the partition to make it part of the luggage compartment. A movable section makes room for his bedroll and here on one side he keeps his air-mattress inflated with sleeping bag unrolled on top, ready for immediate use. Removable screens for the car windows insure adequate ventilation. Food, mainly of the canned and dried varieties, is packed neatly in sturdy wooden boxes. Two jeep cans provide ample water for a long outing. The desert author has learned well the value of utilizing bits of time, rather than waiting for long periods to accomplish a task. He does much of his writing at odd moments, between classes, while lunching, on field trips, in fact whenever he has a few moments to spare. Nor does he always write on regular note paper. More often it is on the back of an envelope or on an irregular piece of brown wrapping paper. He carries on an enormous correspondence, much of it on postal cards. All this in addition to his routine school duties and serious writing. His penmanship is painstakingly precise and small, every letter distinct, he often puts more information on a single postal card than most people can in a long letter. Every weekend almost without fail, as soon as the Friday classes are over, he heads for his beloved desert, not to return until early Monday morning in time for his 8:00 o'clock lecture. On these trips he usually takes one or two of his students, preferably those unacquainted with the desert or new at camping. When you meet Jaeger today (1951), you are impressed with his healthy appearance in spite of graying hair, of his quick wit and sense of humor, of his ready smile and ease of manner. You never feel awkward or ill-at-ease around him. He is a brilliant conversationalist in any company, although his manner is quiet and unobtrusive. No one is better qualified to write about the desert than is Edmund Carroll Jaeger, loving and knowing it intimately as he does. |
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