My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory-an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel" had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside.

With more than one million copies of previous editions sold, this proven, bestselling guide to having fun in the great outdoors provides an all-in-one tool that shows what readers need to know about campsites, fire-building, cooking, backpacking, winter camping, and more.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.

Based on Mark Twain's 1872 autobiographical novel, Roughing It follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867. After a brief stint as a Confederate cavalry militiaman, he joined his brother Orion Clemens, who had been appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, on a stagecoach journey west. Twain consulted his brother's diary to refresh his memory and borrowed heavily from his active imagination for many stories in the novel. Roughing It illustrates many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting, real-estate speculation, a journey to the Kingdom of Hawaii, and his beginnings as a writer. Mark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910), quintessential American humorist, lecturer, essayist, and author wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

If you had to make your own shelter, could you? Could you create an oven or a refrigerator that doesn’t use electricity? When it comes to learning how to rough it, this book is all anyone needs. Fun, inventive, and simple projects, explained in simple steps and photo-illustrated, will captivate the most reluctant of readers.

Probably Canada's best known settlement story, this autobiographical account of frontier conditions in the 1830s is a compelling narrative that emphasizes both the tragedies and the triumphs of a sensible and sensitive woman and her family as they come to terms with their new environment.