Is it really possible...?

[Elessar]

I was looking on the internet a while back and came across one of RM's Country tracks videos....anyway in this video he states that 'natives' were masters of travelling with nothing more than a blanket and a knife.

Whilst i don't doubt his claim i'm wondering if it is still possible to have only a blanket with you as your sleeping gear, and if so is there any particular type of blanket or material......

 

[spamel]

This would be relevant to the part of the world he was mentioning. Once you light a fire and sleep next to it, you could be comfortabvle for the night. A bed of large branches topped with lighter sticks and then browse would be a comfy mattress (trust me, I know) and the heat from the fire would keep you warm. It won't be a nice uninterrupted sleep like you get at home though as you'd need to get up and throw more wood on the fire every couple of hours. A reflector at the back would greatly help, as well as something behind you.

 

[Mirius]

It's also notable in the african safari episode in the Bushcraft series that he joked that the Masai warrior hadn't brought enough blankets and had kept them all awake with his shivering, so I'd take the blanket statement with a pinch of salt.

 

[spamel]

Tha's due to the massive temperature difference between day and night. It would be the same in desert regions as well. For it too really work well you would need an area where the temperature only goes down a few degrees at night.

 

[Elessar]

In the episode in question he is in a british woodland............

 

[-Switch-]

In the episode in question he is in a british woodland............

Then yes, I would say that's quite possible.

A good thick woollen blanket and a strong knife would see you through. It wouldn't be comfortable but if you knew what you were doing (and that's the key point) then you'd be ok.

Get a fire going, improvise a shelter and bed and you've got no worries.

At least not for the next couple of hours.

 

[tomtom]

I would go for a Hudsons Bay Company type blanket.. but that might be a bit of an overly romanticised view of 'the essentials' .

 

[-Switch-]

I would go for a Hudsons Bay Company type blanket.. but that might be a bit of an overly romanticised view of 'the essentials' .

Bushcraft tends to be overly romanticised anyway, so what the hell

 

[Mike Ameling]

There are many things ... romanticized ... about many of the primitive tribes. And many times the individuals involved also helped perpetuate those romantic notions.

There are a number of discussions on some of the Living History Reenactment message boards about camping/trekking with "one blanket". The main concensus is that it really depends upon the local climate. If it is cold enough for ice/snow, then you REALLY need to do a whole lot more camp preparation to survive the night. And sharing your camp and blanket(s) with a buddy really helps.

But most of it is in getting "acclimated" to the area. If you are out in the weather all the time, you get "used to it". That makes a big difference. The rest depends upon knowledge and experience. Do-able? Yes - for the right person.

HBC blankets? Well, as they are currently made, they are better used on your bed at home than as a one-blanket bedroll. They are great, but have some ... problems ... when out in the woods. The big one is that they are too open or loose of weave. That does help trap more air to create more insulation, but most any breeze will blow through them. They work best when used with a wind-proof layer like a canvas tarp. Ditto shedding water.

But if you "full" that blanket, most of the problems/concerns go away. Fulling is a process of controlled shrinking/thickening of a wool blanket. That makes it more like the wool material they use in those naval Peacoats. That's the thickness/tightness of wool material you need for that one-blanket camping/trekking.

Historical note: The HBC company never made blankets - just sold them. Over the years, they bought them from around a half dozen different companies. The last one was Witney, but they went out of business about a year ago. I don't know who their current manufacturer is.

I've camped/trekked with one blanket before. But I limited those trips to more moderate temps - or I did a whole lot more camp prep work at night. That browse bed of pine bows does work really well (where you can make it). And fire management really becomes important. It's a whole lot more than just laying down beside a pile of burning sticks.

The biggest advantage most of those native people had going for themselves was a life-long understanding of the area they lived in. When you have such an intimate knowlege of your area, you can do a whole lot more than most people would beleave.

Just a few humble rambling thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Yes, if it became necessary, I know enough that I could get by and survive in winter with just that one blanket. It would be rough and uncomfortable, but I could get by. But I'd also be much ... grumpier!

 

[rik_uk3]

Some of the America stove collectors I speak to have in the past gone on about the virtues of HBC blankets and speak highly of them, how warm they are etc, the bottom line though is they all now use a sleeping bag

Its a blanket, and good as they may be, they have fallen out of favour in recent years because a sleeping bag does a better job.

A bit off topic, I'm 53 and can only ever remember having a down quilt on my bed, I remember mom saying they were warmer and I also remember thinking how heavy blankets were when I stayed elsewhere! Mom was not even a camper, so I wonder where her idea came from?

 

[PaleoHunterGatherer]

Mike, do you have any links to those living history reenactment message boards, or any such recommendable sights? I'm kinda curious...
Cheers
Alex

 

[Viking]

It´s possible, lotso f people have slept even without a blanket. But this is people who has lived outdors all the time and are not used to the comfort of warm beds or sleeping bags. Sami people had a way to sleep on coals or just on their reindeer skin and when they got cold during the night they had to go up and run around for a bit to get warm again. Then there is the special og fire calle Nuorrsjo who does not need a reflector to keep you warm all around.

If you expect to have your 8 hours of beauty sleep, then it will be hard but if 4 hours of sleep is enough that is not hard since but you will need more food then usual and your bed for the night needs more preparation. I have slept several times without sleeping bag and without the heat from a fire. You will only get a few hours of sleep but for the most people that is enough. The best thing is to sleep tight together with other people to keep warm that is what we did on the WEISS course.

I would not recommend anybody trying this on their own, best thing is to do this under supervision f something would happen, it´s not easy to make fire whle you are shivering of cold.

 

[Tadpole]

Most things are just a matter of getting used to it. Unless you are used to it, sleeping on the ground without the benefit of a mattress is a hardship, I do it year round, (unless you count 12mm of Axminster a mattress) and have done for several years. I sleep better on hard boards than I would in a bed. In the summer, I sleep on and in nothing, and in the winter, I have a matt under me and a single blanket (fleece type). Ok this is in a house, but still the room does get very cold, as there is no heating on. I get eight uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Keeping out of the wind is a must when camping, I sleep well outdoors, in the summer months with just a sleeping bag liner (silk) in a tent. (ok not quite “just a blanket”, but I know some people who use a 58 pattern sleeping bag in the summer and still feel cold, purely because they are used to a modern bed and blankets)

 

[Mike Ameling]

Mike, do you have any links to those living history reenactment message boards, or any such recommendable sights? I'm kinda curious...
Cheers
Alex

Hi.

I posted some of these links in another thread. I also posted some pics of 18th century historical winter camping up in the Bushcraft Chatter forum.

http://www.historicaltrekking.com

http://frontierfolk.net/phpBB/index.php

http://www.northwestjournal.ca/

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/fusionbb.php?

http://www.traditionalmuzzleloadingassociation.com/forum/phpbb2/index.php?sid=bfeefc131f186e65b95a41d24996c91e

http://www.lanouvelle-france.com/

There are many groups out there doing 18th and 17th Century living history reenactments. Check out the Links sections on some of these sites to find other sites.

It's fun and very educational to do this historical living history stuff. You learn a lot of the older ways of doing things. And then there are the people doing the Medieval era, the Viking era, the Roman era, and even back to the paleo hunter/gatherer era - as your user name implies. But once you do start researching various time periods, you start to see a lot of stuff that crossed over the centuries - basic stuff in common around the world and over all the time periods.

Hope this helps.

As to the HBC wool blankets. Yes, they are great blankets - for what they are. But modern technology and materials have far surpassed them. So then it becomes a personal choice as to which you wish to use. I tend to use the older traditional gear.

There is an older Canadian mil/sup blanket that occasionally shows up on places like evil-bay that is a much thicker/tighter weave, and can work better in some situations than those classic HBC blankets. The company that made it is Ayers. I've picked up several off of evil-bay, and for a pretty reasonable price. They are white with a small black stripe along the top and bottom - a very early traditional trade blanket style/color that shows up in various paintings from the 17th ang 18th centuries.

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[big_swede]

It is possible. It all comes down to preparations (as usual). There is a big difference between a blanket and a Blanket I would say. During different outings I have tried two kinds of blanket. Let's be creative and call them blanket a and Blanket b. Blanket a was a nice 70% wool mix, an old surplus model used by the cavalry as horse blankets, and for the rest of the army as, well, blankets (still used to this day for the drafted slave labourers when they're in the barracks). Blanket B was an even older surplus cavalry horse blanket, but with in 100% wool. I could really sense the differences in these two. The 100% wool kept the moist out far better and the mixed one always felt a bit damp and generally unnice. Mind you, both were used in a canvas bedroll, which has it its pros and cons (the biggest pro being that it is extremely well made by yours truly )

I would use neither one without a parallell-lay fire or in a heated shelter. It is important to remember that a lot of thee ol' blanket dwellers actually used (semi-)enclosed shelters with fire in them, e.g. mr Mears (at least in the brititsh woodland episode someone was refering to).

As for insulation-per-weight issues, a blanket has nothing on a down sleeping bag, but that's not the thing when you decide to make an outing with a blanket. The authencity and the feeling of sleeping in a blanket when there is frost on the ground makes it rewarding to lug around 3 kilos of wool IMHO. After all, wilderness living is about skills, and not about kit. A sleeping bag requires virtually nil skill to be used succesfulle (bar that someones tries to sleep in water or something else equally stupid). A blanket requires a good knowledge of firecraft and sheltercraft. But surely the old woolen blankets has a lot of cons over a down bag too, there almost indestructible, the stand against wet weather better, can be used as a bag on a wooden pack-frame, fire retardent, can be used to extinguish fires on a person etc etc..

That said, blanket in the middel of winter? no! blanket during a woodland spring/summer/fall camp-out? Well, why not?

 

[spamel]

I don't think the day to night temperature difference in UK is as great as in the desert regions or in Africa. I've spent time in both places and I froze in Africa at night in the summer. This was because I got used to the extremely hot days. Night time was probably like a warm summer evening in UK, but the day was like sitting in an ove with the door slightly opened! The evening, therefore, actually felt cold. I slept in an issued jungle sleeping bag wearing tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and socks to try and stay warm, in a large canvas tent with seven other blokes. It really felt cold.

 

[Bernie Garland]

i think it all boils down to the times,ie the mountain men had only a blanket so just got used to it,the cowboys on cattle drives only had a blanket and got used to it,as it was all they had,but we are now spoilt with modern technology,if all we had now was a blanket we'd get used to it,a decent fire a bit of cover if raining i think you could hack it and have a decent kip.

bernie

 

[PaleoHunterGatherer]

Hi.

I posted some of these links in another thread. I also posted some pics of 18th century historical winter camping up in the Bushcraft Chatter forum.

http://www.historicaltrekking.com

http://frontierfolk.net/phpBB/index.php

http://www.northwestjournal.ca/

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/fusionbb.php?

http://www.traditionalmuzzleloadingassociation.com/forum/phpbb2/index.php?sid=bfeefc131f186e65b95a41d24996c91e

http://www.lanouvelle-france.com/

There are many groups out there doing 18th and 17th Century living history reenactments. Check out the Links sections on some of these sites to find other sites.

It's fun and very educational to do this historical living history stuff. You learn a lot of the older ways of doing things. And then there are the people doing the Medieval era, the Viking era, the Roman era, and even back to the paleo hunter/gatherer era - as your user name implies. But once you do start researching various time periods, you start to see a lot of stuff that crossed over the centuries - basic stuff in common around the world and over all the time periods.

Hope this helps.

As to the HBC wool blankets. Yes, they are great blankets - for what they are. But modern technology and materials have far surpassed them. So then it becomes a personal choice as to which you wish to use. I tend to use the older traditional gear.

There is an older Canadian mil/sup blanket that occasionally shows up on places like evil-bay that is a much thicker/tighter weave, and can work better in some situations than those classic HBC blankets. The company that made it is Ayers. I've picked up several off of evil-bay, and for a pretty reasonable price. They are white with a small black stripe along the top and bottom - a very early traditional trade blanket style/color that shows up in various paintings from the 17th ang 18th centuries.

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Mike, thanks, those sites are spot on!
I have this sneaky feeling that I may be starting a new 'hobby'
Cheers
Alex

 

[Mike Ameling]

How much can humans adapt to the weather/climate?

Many years ago, I read about the studies the US military did - as part of the NASA space program. They wanted to know just how much people could adapt to. I still remember two of the studies. One concerned how much heat people could live with/in. The other was how cold.

They took a family of 4 (man, woman, two kids), put them in a private/seclude home. The heat was turned off, the windows were permanently opened, the people had no clothes, and they were only allowed a sheet on their beds at night. They started the study with the family in summer - so the transition to the outside climate was pretty easy. They then followed the family's progress as they moved through fall and on into winter. The last picture (discreately posed) showed the family sitting out on the patio eating breakfast while sitting in snow! They were exposed to the outside climate 24 hours a day, every day. They got acclimated to it. But the researchers did note one minor side-effect: a slight increase in body hair!

The other part of the study was to see how hot of temps a man could adapt to, and for how long. They started with a large "oven" or heat chamber, and had their volunteers sit in it. They ran the temp up to 100, and had them stay in there for an hour, and then slow-cooled it back to normal. Of course, their test subjects were carefully monitored before/during/after each session. The next time they cranked the heat up a little higher. In the end, they had several people that got "acclimated" to some pretty high temps. The last temps they reported were 1 hour at 300 degrees (F)!!! The guys lost about 10 pounds of water in sweat, but suffered no ill effects. 300 degrees (F) for an hour? That's what you do when you bake supper in the oven!

So people can adapt or acclimate to some pretty extreme climates. Just look at the pictures of all those Eskimo kids running around nekkid in their igloos while playing on the ice floors! My folks remember when they were growing up on the farm - they would occasionally run around playing and doing chores barefoot in the snow. I heat my home with wood, and get ... acclimated ... to much cooler temps than the rest of my family with their modern central heating systems. At family gatherings, I'm the one shucking off clothes while they are turning up the thermostat and complaining about being ... chilled.

So most of it is what you get acclimated to. And then you need to really know the area you are in. After that, it all depends upon your skills.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it is a whole lot more than just keeping warm overnight. You also have to find a source of water, and secure a food supply. A lot more knowlege/skills to blend into your whole experience. Being trained from a very early age to do all this really makes it a lot easier to do.

Just some more humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. I need to find that NASA study stuff again. It had a bunch more stuff they studied - like adapting to always being exposed to light, or to near dark. And how to tell time without clocks or seeing the outside. (Most of the subjects eventually settled on a 26 hour day instead of 24 hours! What's up with that?) Yeah, that was an interesting article/report - if I can find it back.

 

[big_swede]

That was an interesting post. As for adapting to dark, again, think of the inuits (or canadian indians in nunavat), they have darkness for up to 3 months (at least at thule, greenland).