Part 1
Shelter building, as most skills I have learned in bushcraft, have have been from uncle Rays books. I started out with "The Outdoor Survival Handbook" by building the one man "kennel" type debris hut. Then I experimented with open sided shelters with fires, like the lean-to and the deciduous forest "half dome" equivalent from "Essential Bushcraft". I found the open fronted shelters to be particularly good, especially being able to sit up in them by the fire, giving you space to work on a rainy day. But I always found it hard to get a good long nights sleep in colder weather. As soon as the fire burns low you get cold patch and your up again putting logs on the fire. So this winter I had the plan of trying to make a more permanent sheter, one I could be comfortable in for weeks on end.
My thoughts turned to the Native American Tepee and Sammi Lavvu. Where I am in Scotland there is plenty of plantation forest offering the perfect northern forest type setting and meterials for these shelters. I planned to make one big enough for two people, so I set off for the day in search of the right location. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a spot with all the things I needed: flat/dry ground, proximity to water, poles for the frame, thatching materials and firewood, but eventually i found somewhere.
Having found the location, the next week I returned with everything I needed for an overnight stay. I got there, cleared the ground and layed out to measure the floor diameter I would need, allowing about 1 and a half times my height. I started by finding three stout poles to use as the main frame and by leaving some braches attached at the top of the poles to act as forks, I didn't need to lash the apex. I whittled a point onto the end of each support and dug a small post hole for each to secure it from slipping. I was able to use dead wood to build the whole frame as it was easy to find dead stading trees that had become crowded out in the forest.
I leaned three more poles to the frame to make it more circular, then to leave a free smoke hole at the top, I thought it would be best to lash cross bars down from the apex to lean the rafters to. I decided to use spruce roots for this so made myself a handy digging stick and went root hunting! This is easier said than done when the ground is frozen! I discovered that if I found an uprooted spruce, I could get to the roots in the ground beneath the frozen layer, in the side of the hole left by the tree. Of the roots gathered, I found those about pencil thickness worked the best. Plenty of clove hitches, and a few more poles later and the Lavvu was taking shape!
By this time the short winters day was all but over and there was no hope of finishing in time. Without a tarp, I decided to head home. Gathering and using the spruce roots had taken a lot longer than expected.
I returned again a week later, fully tooled up for a night in the bush. This time the temperature had risen with a full thaw in progress and the silent winter woods dripping with water. I set to with my axe felling and limbing dead standing poles to complete the frame. With that complete, I began thatching with spruce boughs. I soon appreciated the increase in work required with this design over my previous smaller shelters. I found it particularly hard going using my small forest axe to cut the boughs. Even with it well sharpened, it was a slow and laborious task. Again I was forced to head home without staying the night but I appreciated now the work required to finish. I headed back again to work on it for a day and practice some other skills too. The camp was beginning to look lived in.
Shelter building, as most skills I have learned in bushcraft, have have been from uncle Rays books. I started out with "The Outdoor Survival Handbook" by building the one man "kennel" type debris hut. Then I experimented with open sided shelters with fires, like the lean-to and the deciduous forest "half dome" equivalent from "Essential Bushcraft". I found the open fronted shelters to be particularly good, especially being able to sit up in them by the fire, giving you space to work on a rainy day. But I always found it hard to get a good long nights sleep in colder weather. As soon as the fire burns low you get cold patch and your up again putting logs on the fire. So this winter I had the plan of trying to make a more permanent sheter, one I could be comfortable in for weeks on end.
My thoughts turned to the Native American Tepee and Sammi Lavvu. Where I am in Scotland there is plenty of plantation forest offering the perfect northern forest type setting and meterials for these shelters. I planned to make one big enough for two people, so I set off for the day in search of the right location. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a spot with all the things I needed: flat/dry ground, proximity to water, poles for the frame, thatching materials and firewood, but eventually i found somewhere.
Having found the location, the next week I returned with everything I needed for an overnight stay. I got there, cleared the ground and layed out to measure the floor diameter I would need, allowing about 1 and a half times my height. I started by finding three stout poles to use as the main frame and by leaving some braches attached at the top of the poles to act as forks, I didn't need to lash the apex. I whittled a point onto the end of each support and dug a small post hole for each to secure it from slipping. I was able to use dead wood to build the whole frame as it was easy to find dead stading trees that had become crowded out in the forest.
I leaned three more poles to the frame to make it more circular, then to leave a free smoke hole at the top, I thought it would be best to lash cross bars down from the apex to lean the rafters to. I decided to use spruce roots for this so made myself a handy digging stick and went root hunting! This is easier said than done when the ground is frozen! I discovered that if I found an uprooted spruce, I could get to the roots in the ground beneath the frozen layer, in the side of the hole left by the tree. Of the roots gathered, I found those about pencil thickness worked the best. Plenty of clove hitches, and a few more poles later and the Lavvu was taking shape!
By this time the short winters day was all but over and there was no hope of finishing in time. Without a tarp, I decided to head home. Gathering and using the spruce roots had taken a lot longer than expected.
I returned again a week later, fully tooled up for a night in the bush. This time the temperature had risen with a full thaw in progress and the silent winter woods dripping with water. I set to with my axe felling and limbing dead standing poles to complete the frame. With that complete, I began thatching with spruce boughs. I soon appreciated the increase in work required with this design over my previous smaller shelters. I found it particularly hard going using my small forest axe to cut the boughs. Even with it well sharpened, it was a slow and laborious task. Again I was forced to head home without staying the night but I appreciated now the work required to finish. I headed back again to work on it for a day and practice some other skills too. The camp was beginning to look lived in.
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