Hey, Cool Campers!

Easy to obtain, you can pick up a pair of sunglasses for yourself at any ol’ convenience store. Or, if your vision requires corrective lenses, splurge on a nice pair of prescription sunglasses. But things weren’t always so. Sunglasses have been around for a long time, but not forever. So when were these crafty specs invented and who were the first folks to wear these cool shades?

The Alaskan Inuits, also known as Eskimos, get the credit for the invention of sunglasses, though the very first ‘sunglasses’ didn’t look anything like a cool pair of shades that we know and love today. They made them for staring out upon the vast plains of blindingly white snow sparkling in the sunlight.

The ancient ‘snow goggle’, however, essentially worked the same way as our modern polarized sunglasses. They were typically carved out of bone or ivory, featuring a long, single slit or multiple slits for each eye to see through. Some modern sunglasses are even modeled after this style with bars running across each eye covering.

Sunlight comes down in vertical light waves, reflects off surfaces, and changes into horizontal light waves. Polarized sunglasses are designed to block horizontal light waves, cutting back on glare. The small viewing slit did the same thing. Along the same lines of squinting as well as narrowing a camera’s aperture, the science is the same as it was 2000 years ago! Learn more on the topic with this old Blog post. 

Chinese judges in the Middle Ages wore glasses with a smoke-colored quartz lens not for the purpose of protective eyewear, but to hide any expression that could be revealed through their eyes. For a time after that around the 16 to 1700s, darkened glasses were thought to help correct visual impairments. While the science of this was shown to be untrue, they were eventually sold as sunglasses.

It was a man named Ray Ban who made the first polarized pair of sunglasses that reduce glare from sunlight. And a commercial for Foster Grant sunglasses in 1960 skyrocketed the popularity for this product making them the cool, long-lasting fashion that they still are today. Check out the shades we’ve got available here at Everything Summer Camp and, as always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Boot Boys and Girls!

These boots are made for walking. It’s not just a catchy line in a song; it’s a fact. Boots were designed for walking through snow, shallow water, and mud while keeping your feet clean, dry, and protected. The closely stitched design of leather, rubber, and canvas (or other similar materials) keeps it so everything on the outside STAYS on the outside.

Some boots, like a hiker, have tongue and laces like your everyday tennis shoe. Other boots, like rain boots, don’t have those different parts because they seal everything out. And yet, other kinds of boots, like a winter boot, may have insulation to provide you with warmth. We’ll explore this more in a minute.

With so many styles, purposes, and functions, how did such a versatile invention get started? Well, boots evolved as new conditions were encountered. For example, people didn’t need winter boots until they started expanding their territories into colder climates. So what was the original boot? When was it made and for what purpose?

Began in Pieces
Because of depictions in cave paintings that geologists date back to about 15,000 years ago, it’s suggested that boots are at least that old. Other, historical evidence shows us that early boots were made of separate coverings: a two-piece—one piece to cover the foot and another piece for the lower leg. It was about 3000 years ago now that we see the two coverings welded together as the single unit of footwear we know today. 

Cold Feet
Back that long ago, it was common for people to just walk around barefoot for everyday activities. A trip across longer distances would maybe get sandals or wooden shoes. Boots were for journeys across rough terrain, hunting, and sports. Boots were a natural need for nomadic cultures. People traveled from Asia to China to India to Russia and pushed into colder lands. Alaskan Eskimos began wearing animal parts, lining the inside with fur as early means of insulation.

War Boots
Militaries throughout the years and all over the world supplied their soldiers with the proper footwear for battle: boots! In fact, they’re responsible for developing a number of different styles such as boots that featured thick soles and turnover tops, designed to protect soldiers on horseback. Thigh-high boots were worn by Hessian soldiers of the American Revolutionary War which brought a big influence on the iconic cowboy boots of the American West cattlemen. For commanding officers in more recent years, boots have become more of a symbol of rank as opposed to any practical purposes.

Be sure to check out the boots we have available here at everyone’s favorite online store for kids camping gear, Everything Summer Camp. Appreciate it every time you strap on your boots that you can go muck it up or trudge through hills of snow while keeping your feet perfectly comfortable. Until next time, Camp Folks! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Frisbee Fans!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a flying saucer! No, I’m not talking about any close encounters of the third kind sort of flying saucer. It’s the toy flying saucer that I’m talking about. You can use it to play a game of catch unlike any other—no ball involved—along with a number of other Frisbee-centric sports such as Ultimate Frisbee or Disc Golf.

The Frisbee glides by providing its own lift as it moves through the air and its spin is what creates its stability (using angular momentum in the same fashion as a gyroscope). This allows for aim and accuracy when it’s thrown.

Such a different concept from the typical ball that most sports use, how did such an interesting toy as the Frisbee come to be invented anyway? Well, it’s a cool story—one that starts in 1937 on a Thanksgiving Day evening.

After enjoying a delicious meal, one Walter Morrison and his one-day wife, Lucille, were having some fun, tossing around the lid of a popcorn canister. They discovered how well a flat disc could travel with the proper throw.

Another day, experimenting with the same concept, Walter and Lucille were tossing a cake pan back and forth on an afternoon at the beach. They were offered 25¢ for the pan despite the fact that cake pans, at the time, only cost a fifth of the offer that was made.

The couple saw that this idea could produce a profit and Walter sketched up a new design to make the disk more aerodynamic for improved flight. They named it the Whirlo-Way after a famous racehorse, however, in the midst of increasing UFO sightings after the incident at Roswell, New Mexico, they renamed their toy the Flyin-Saucer to capitalize on the craze.

From there, Walter started his own company in 1954 and redesigned the Flyin Saucer model, calling it the Pluto Platter. Before long, he sold the rights to Wham-O. That pretty much completes the history of the Frisbee—except for how it got its name.

Ironically, the name comes from students of Yale University who started tossing around empty pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company—just the way Walter and Lucille threw around popcorn tin lids and cake pans! Once the co-founders of Wham-O learned of this term for throwing discs, they renamed the Pluto Platter for good. Catch your own light-up Frisbee right here at Everything Summer Camp and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Curious Camp Folks!

It’s something that we all do—probably at least a few times every day! Checking your reflection to make sure you’re looking good and don’t have any boogers or spinach in your teeth is a ritual people have been practicing since before mirrors even existed! People would use ponds, streams, and lakes for reflective purposes as a sort of primitive mirror.

The first mirrors to actually be constructed were first made around 6000 years ago. They were made from stones that had been polished down to a smooth, reflecting surface. This took patience as well as methods of trial and error. If black volcanic glass obsidian was able to be acquired, it provided was much easier to create a reflective surface. The volcanic material was created as it cooled rapidly after volcanic activity.

Nowadays, a major part of a mirror is glass. But glass has more transparent than reflective properties, so it needs to be coated in order to reflect light. Metallic coatings of silver, gold, and chrome would eventually prove themselves to be the best for the job. These mirrors made of metal alloys or precious metals, however, were very valuable items that were only afforded by the rich in ancient times.

Mesopotamian Mirrors
The ancient people in Mesopotamia were one of the first to switch from stone-polishing to metal-polishing to make their mirrors a rough 4000 years ago.

Reflect like an Egyptian
Ancient Egyptians discovered polished copper was a great metal for mirror-making. They became experimental with their mirrors, adding ornate frames to border their round mirrors.

Check yourself in a Chinese Mirror
In China, they took it a step further and made their mirrors from metal alloys—a combination of tin and copper and sometimes bronze too. This was the very beginning of our modern means of making mirrors.

Thanks to all the preceding processes and experimentations of our ancient ancestors, flawless mirrors are a part of every household. So give your reflection some attention today and be thankful that you’re able to check yourself with such crystal clarity in that reflective window. As always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Camping Cooks!

Food is an essential part of everyday living and that doesn’t change when you’re camping out in the great outdoors! Like the history of summer camp itself, cookware history calls back to primitive roots that turned domestic. So, before there were pots and pans—much less stovetops or ovens—how did people cook their food? Let’s dive into the past to see how things got started!

Long before anyone ever heard of a place such as the kitchen, cooking was done outside the way it’s done when we’re out on a camping expedition: right over a good ol’ campfire. Boiling water was just as essential of a process back then as it is now. And some extremely resourceful minds realized that turtle shells were a perfect waterproof cooking pot.

Of course, while turtle shells got the job done just fine, turtles weren’t always handy. Stones, on the other hand, are plentiful. Instead, people would carve out from large stones to create big bowls that would become permanent fixtures in the hearths of early homesteads.

Stone worked well for cooking, but it took lots of time and work to fashion bowls out of rock. A much simpler option called pottery was on the rise. Pottery, made from the clay of the earth, was developed to create earthen cookware. Ceramic pots were easy to transport and much easier to fashion than its stone predecessor.

Ceramic cookware still had its drawbacks, though. It was a poor conductor of heat and would crack in too high of temperatures. This led to long cook times over a low degree of heat. Yet, this was the primary means of cooking until the 1600s when metalworking skills were developed and introduced to the kitchen scene of medieval days.

Though extremely heavy, cast-iron is hailed as one of the best materials to cook with (even today). It does not, however, lend itself well to the camp life. More modern developments in cookware have produced much more camp-friendly means of cooking materials.

The Bugaboo Mess Kit from GSI Outdoors, for instance—and available here at Everything Summer Camp—is made of non-stick coated aluminum for a lightweight, efficient means of cooking! Enjoy our modern means of cooking over an open fire and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John