Native American Tipi

[Pignut]

Anyone any info/experiance with these?

Any construction info, patterns, use of etc,

Really like the look of them! but are they practical for our climate?

Any thought/experiances greatly recieved

Regards

 

[statikpunk]

one thing to remember when building a tipi that many people forget is the liner on the inside that directs the air flowing under the edges up and out the hole in the top taking your small fire smoke with it, all you have to do is hang blankets from the support poles on the inside around the perimeter of the tipi,letting them touch the ground, and it will direct the cold air out and keep the warm air in, I have noticed that this step is often skipped when people demonstrate how to erect a tipi, probably because most people don't use tipis in cold weather and the method slowly disappeared from knowledge.
i wish i had a picture to demonstrate sorry
tipis that are well built can sustain people very comfortably in harsher weather than GB could even throw at you.
as far as building one, there is no real trick just pretend you are a kid again, and it will go up

 

[saddle_tramp]

I think the biggest downer with tipis is the length of the poles.

A friend of mine built a 19ft tipi and the pole length was 25/26ft. thats a long old pole when it comes to transport them anywhere (17 of them as well)

Furthermore, rainwater runs down the poles, and as long as they are dead smooth, it runs all the way to the bottom, so isnt a problem. But any kind of joint or fixing to section the poles, creates a natural drip,

 

[Mike Ameling]

Laubin's book The Indian Tipi is considered THE book to get.

The size is approximately the diameter of the main circle of their "footprint" on the ground. It's actually a little more teardrop shaped than round. So an 18 foot tipi has a "footprint" on the ground roughly in size with an 18 foot diameter circle. Plus the Liner goes on the inside of the poles reducing the interior size by around 5 to 6 inches all the way around. And then the sides slope, so you can't use all the floor space out to the edges. So with an 18 foot tipi, you end up with a circular area inside around 15 or 16 feet in diameter. Then put a fire pit in the middle and that takes up another 3 to 5 feet out of the middle.

The poles necessary are usually 3 feet or more longer than the tipi size. So 20 foot long poles are kind of the minimum for an 18 foot tipi. And 15 to 18 poles would be needed. Transporting them is the hard part of having a tipi. If you have it set up in one spot and leave it there, then transporting the poles isn't a problem. And all that canvas will weigh in over 100 pounds dry - more when wet. Plus around one stake per pole to hold it all down.

If you build a fire inside, you need good DRY wood. Your fire needs to be either burning with flames or just a bed of coals. Otherwise you will have smoke inside. Generally, if you are sitting down or laying down you will be OK. But being any higher up will have you breathing smoke. Having that open fire inside bothers some people - do to sparks popping out of the fire, or accidentally rolling over into it.

I camped with a 16 foot tipi for several years. They can be fun, and are a wonderful structure to sleep in. But they also are a lot of work. And I have several friends that wintered over in one up in Minnesota. Temps got down to 40 below zero (Farenhiet) a number of times that winter. Jeff said that when he crawled out from under the blankets in the morning to start the fire, that he hopped around a bunch till the fire built up and started to kick out some heat. They also had dug a pit inside and buried a camping cooler down in it - to store food and water in that they didn't want to freeze!

There is a lot of "romantic notions" floating around about tipis, but the reality of actual use is a bit different. Even a simple canvas wal-tent with an iron woodstove is soooo much more comfortable for most people. It's all a matter of the work you want to do, and the experience you are looking for. Most people I know who have used a tipi eventually move on to some other style of tent.

That all being said, I now have an old tipi cover/liner setting in the shed waiting for me to repair a few big holes in it, and cut new poles to set it up. I'm bound ... to go round ... again!

Get Laubin's book. It will answer lots of your questions - including construction one yourself.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[gunnix]

Me and my girlfriend lived for 9 months in a tipi last year. From september to june. It was really nice to live in it. Even if it got down to -15C, it was no big problem as long as we had good clothes on, lots of wool. The open fire was very nice, it helped that we loved to chop a lot of wood. We had a pipe running into the base of the fire pit and made other improvements to keep smoke to a minimum. We checked the direction of wind all the time to put the smoke flaps in the right setup. But there's a downside, it's colder if the smoke goes out trough the hole quickly, we clearly noticed it's warmer if the smoke stays hanging above our heads and doesn't go away to fast. So we needed to find the right balance if we wanted to keep the heat in. We just didn't make the opening of the smoke flaps to big. A liner is also very important in a tipi, it had to be completely windproof so we didn't have a draft where we were sitting and sleeping. The floor was also important, we covered the earth with saw mill wood and over that a layer of spruce boughs. It made a noticable difference, and a nice floor to lie on next to the fire. Real luxury. Our best setup came after some months of living in it. We made three beds around the fire, which could be used to sit on, or sleep on. Firewood next to the door, food and other things in plastic boxes under the beds, which are off the floor. Cooking pots hanged on hooks tied to the anchor line, which kept the tipi down in strong winds.

The cold wasn't really a big problem in the tipi, but the worst part was actually when the mosquitos came in may. It became nearly unbearable to be in the tipi, as it was full of mosquitos. Making fire with a lot of smoke didn't seem an option as you don't really want a fire when it's too warm already.

We never had to transport the tipi, I would not be to happy to do so either. Except if I could chop some trees on the site to use as poles, I wouldn't want to transport those poles for any distance. The canvas itself was not too heavy for a 16 foot tipi.