1913  Coast Indians . . . found their profits from fur trade with the interior, or "Stick Indian" as he was known, because he came from the land of forest, or "sticks". . . .
1938  (1950)  "Wolf very wise, judt like man. I think you neber see him in sticks [forest], only open country, sometimes."
1954  Back in the sticks is no place for her, that's for sure.
1962  Christmas Day the cows have to be fed, like any other day, and chances are you're away out in the sticks somewhere like this.
2n.Slang any place distant from urban areas ; back-country.
1936  You're away out in the sticks and they expect you to work for twenty cents a day.
1958  The company's decision not to migrate uptown or to the suburbs was a reversal of the out-to-the-sticks movement which has been marked in some U.S. cities by building of huge office buildings in farmers' fields.