Back in the day, the best way to go about dealing with the stresses of modern living was to escape into the woods. Nowadays, we're seeing a resurgence of that mentality.
Human beings started their existence while living in the wilderness, and relying on fire, tools, and traps to get by. Nowadays, we have smartphones, high-speed trains, student debt, and coronavirus.
It wasn't that long ago that human beings didn't even really need to wear clothes, so it only makes sense that people would want to get back to their genetic roots by sleeping in the woods for a couple of days here and there.
But, the world of camping evolved to reflect the current human lifestyle. Instead of camping to survive, people camp to thrive.
In 1861, the Gunnery Camp was founded in Washington, Connecticut by a man named Frederick Gunn.
Gunn opened a boy's school in the small town that taught young men how to fend for themselves in the real world. Every year, when the winter turned to spring, Gunn would bring a group of his students on a two-week-long trip into the woods. They would hike to a specific wilderness area where they set up camp.
Gunn would run classes on birdwatching, trapping, hunting, gathering, and of course, cooking over a smoky campfire.
This was the foundation of modern recreational camping.