Been watching videos of folks building rough log cabins in the woods, calling it bushcraft

[Toddy]

I've been unwell, and stuck without much energy I've been watching videos of folks building stuff. Log cabins, bushcraft cabins, shelters, etc.,
and ye Gods! and little fishes ! what an amount of work ! What an amount of tree felling, etc., to build something the size of a garden shed.


I know that felling trees is actually quite hard work, and processing them is harder yet.
Not exactly a quick thing either; like you don't fell a hundred trees and throw up a 'cabin' in a night, or a week....or a month ?

I know that making hurdles is much simpler, much more easily done, and that in the past people made two layers of hurdles and stuffed the space in between with brash, leaf litter, rushes, heather....just whatever they had to hand.

The hurdles make great frames, can be made in situ and make a very weather proof and safe structure. Strong enough to take ribs for a roof, whether that's a bender style or an A frame, just keep the timbers of the same kind of diameter as the hurdle sails and it's all good.

I don't get the desperate necessity to make a 'log cabin', that isn't really.
It's not that the weather proofing is any better, it's not the heat conservation is any better.

Somewhat bemused and puzzled.
What am I missing about all this ?

M

 

[grainweevil]

What am I missing about all this ?

'Murrica.

Can only guess that lead weight in the bedsheet of cultural influence is drawing people into thinking log cabins are the only way.

 

[slowworm]

I'm currently looking after my mum again and occasionally watching some strange TV. There's one programme where they seem to dismantle old log cabins and move them, giving them a new lease of life. Some of the logs seem to be a couple of hundred years old, so perhaps the appeal is something longer lasting than hurdles? They also seem to have to cope with heavier snow and other more extreme weather.

 

[Jared]

Think may depend on local fauna, if have wild bears then probably want the security a cabin provides.

 

[Kadushu]

Makes sense in Alaska where you have bears and snow load to contend with. Reminds me of my thoughts on Alone where people built shelters ranging from "it only took half an hour to build and will only take a badger's fart to knock it down" through to "it'll hold off the Viking hordes... if it's ever completed." I thought quite a few people wasted precious time and calories overbuilding their shelter.

 

[Jared]

Yeah, quite a few people in Alone have managed to burn down their shelter. So made with bigger wood might help prevent if from going up from a spark.

The most extreme shelter in Alone, was in season 7. Roland Welker and his Rockhouse. Walls made from 200lb rocks, but the effort paid off for sure.

 

[Chris]

It’s unfortunately become a bit of a YouTube gimmick.

People chasing views rather than imparting useful bushcraft knowledge. Although I suppose if that’s what people click on, and the YouTubers do this as a full time job, they do need to chase the views a bit.

Just don’t see it as bushcraft, personally. Especially not when it includes getting electricity put in and the use of power tools.

 

[Pattree]

I could only surmise an answer to your question @Toddy . Security in a land where they weren’t wanted would be a start.
What strikes me is that that’s what the old folk did, despite all the effort that you describe. ( And I’ve felled trees with crosscut saw and axe ). It’s a huge effort and dealing with the branches is harder yet.
Whatever motivated them was pretty powerful. Fashion or trend it wasn’t.

 

[Toddy]

Ah, I think I ought to have been clearer.

It's the construction of 'log cabins' that are barely big enough to lie down within, titled bushcraft, with a huge effort and use of resources, and calling it bushcraft.

It just seems totally overkill, tbh.

Usually we built with stone here if we wanted permanence.

Hurdles generally last between six and eight years.....just long enough for the coppiced stumps to regrow proper thick and long rods again
Very practical, and a heck of a lot simpler and easier to use.

 

[Broch]

Coincidently, I have just spent a couple of hours (and a few beers) in a cabin that a friend built in his 27acre woodland. To be fair, he felled with chainsaws and planked with a transportable bandsaw/mill. He had to fell the trees anyway (there was a desperate need to thin) and he wanted all the wood to come from his wood. He wanted a shelter that would last years and was secure (tools etc. left in). Like me, he's put a wood burner, basic cooking facilities, and LED lighting in. I think any type of temporary shelter would not have been suitable.

Bushcraft? definitely not - more pioneering craft.

His site is PAWS (plantation on ancient woodland site) and he is slowly reverting it to native deciduous (though it will take more than his lifetime).

 

[Herman30]

dismantle old log cabins and move them, giving them a new lease of life. Some of the logs seem to be a couple of hundred years old.

Happens in Finland, too. Either people restore an renovate old loghouses or move them to a new place. It´s not a common thing but there are peopl who prefer to live in loghouses. Loghouses are held helthier since they don´t have allsorts of who knows what inside walls.

But to the original poster: I don´t see those log structure to be bushcrafting and I don´t like them felling trees just for fun and not necessery living.

 

[Toddy]

This link is to a Brit's youtube where he and his Dad build an Anglo Saxon pit house.....this is just one of the styles of mostly small timbers constructions that were common right across the British Isles/N. Europe. From round houses to cruck frames, wattle and daub.....there's a heck of a lot of choice that doesn't need to fell a forest.

 

[Laurentius]

I have been a naughty boy today, I have been out scavenging fallen logs to use as part of my hugelkultur, but then I guess it is still sustainable albeit I am not leaving the logs in situ to degenerate.

 

[Toddy]

That's just practical re-cycling of natural resources

 

[Keith_Beef]

'Murrica.

Can only guess that lead weight in the bedsheet of cultural influence is drawing people into thinking log cabins are the only way.

I remember watching a series of YouTube videos with a tutor something like "my self-reliance life". Possibly northern part of USA, but could well have been Canada... This guy built himself a really big cabin, but got loads of stuff brought out to him, I can only imagine by hydroplane using a nearby lake. Window frames, glass, lead flashing, stainless steel sink and draining board, taps, refractory bricks for the fireplace.

 

[Jared]

Dick Proenneke?

 

[Pattree]

I’ve read exactly the same argument about what is and what isn’t a camp. It is about half of the first chapter of The Forest by TE White.

The problem arises that each time you declare something to be “not bushcraft” you are tacitly declaring that you hold a definitive model of that which IS bushcraft.

I suspect that that too might be contentious.

 

[Toddy]

It's more akin to pioneering, tbh.

Maybe it's the old adage; Survival is get out asap, but Bushcraft is chill out asap.

 

[Paul_B]

You sometimes see houses in some more authentic western films that were out in the depths of nowhere. They were very low above the surrounding ground with very few layers of logs the roof was basically turf, possibly to avoid issues with fire and lightning I suppose. The reason was that they actually dig down inside the cabin to get the height.

Is that bushcraft? Back in the day they were living off the land, hunting, foraging and growing a bit too. The building was a means to live there while effectively a form of something close to bushcraft.

The YouTube types in the modern world are possibly not living as closely to that old kind of lifestyle. Perhaps if they're living in it and living off the land then they're more homesteading?

It all comes down to bushcraft being an over used phrase that means nothing precisely. If you can have a 1001 different interpretations from 1000 people it then has very little importance as a word. I'm afraid I don't think it has a meaning these days so I don't see how we can be negative about anyone using it for what they do in the outdoors.

 

[Herman30]

Having more of the cabin under the ground than above I would say have to do with temperature = steady temperature. Cool in the summer and not much of walls to let heat out in the winter. As long as the roof is well insulated.