Tenting To-Night: A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the Cascade Mountains

This is Mary Roberts Rinehart away from her detective novels, discovering that real adventure needed no murder to be compelling. Written in 1918 about a 1916 expedition, this is her account of leading a family camping party through Glacier National Park and the North Cascades, traversing rugged trails, fishing mountain streams, and learning the hard-won satisfactions of wilderness living. Rinehart brings her narrative instincts to the wild: she catches the humor in a tent that won't stay upright, the frustration of a canoe that won't behave, and the small victories of making fire in the rain. She and her companions tackle the logistics of feeding themselves in the backcountry, navigating mountain passes, and simply surviving outside civilization's safety. The writing captures both the physical challenges and the quiet transformation that comes from weeks in untamed landscape. What emerges is a portrait of America just beginning to embrace its national parks, seen through the eyes of a writer who approached the wilderness with wit, wonder, and no small amount of nerve.