Learn Bushcraft skills by videos
watch the best bushcrafters explain techniques and skills

Building a Long Term Primitive Shelter - Part 1 (Wiki)

Description

NativeSurvival Community Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxv1HGqDaf04BnpDIdQ4L1Q/videos

All the newest vids are posted advertisement free at the Community Channel, after 4 months they are published here with ads.

Website: http://nativesurvival.com/

Mitch, Mitchell, Alone, History, Channel, Survival, Nativesurvival.

Tags: shelter,hunting,fishing,bushcraft,survival,native,nativesurvival,fire,water,navigation,primitive,aboriginal,shooting,shooting tips,trapping,modern,frontier,pioneer,field dressing,butchering,trees,plants,edible,medicinal,eastern,woodland,knots,sharpening,sun,moon,stars,trap,bow,arrow,handdrill,flintknapping,arrowhead,self reliance,nessmuk,kephart,boone,ray mears

Video Transcription

hi doing this initial turn 8 survival school behind me here I have the skeleton structure of a teepee or wiki that I built about five years ago and I never finished it I never continued with the rafters and put the shingling on the sides with debris I'm going to see if I can resurrect this project and do that now

so the way that I made a structure very very simple I mean it's made a tripod those two front sticks right there see they're lashed together there's a third stick right in the middle laid over them to make a tripod so I've he's to front and the single back that's all I did was the beginning of it so I just made a tripod I lashed them together using a tripod lash with frapping I learned back when I was a boy scout many many years ago and then very simple from there all I did was go to those same pieces of the tripod and as I added sticks I started tying two more but basically I started tying crossmembers going across so if a stick has a bow if it's bent normally you would want to swing down and be bent in but now it's going to stop at the crossmember so that was big once I figured that out so I did crossmembers down here and then I did the same further up as you can see crossmember there and there and it just helps to hold the sticks that aren't tall enough to reach the top to hold them right there and it also allows me to have a couple long ones that make up the skeletal structure and the other ones too fall short because they stop at the cross pieces as you can see see how these all fall short of the peak that makes a smoke hole up top is all the all the sticks don't reach the top it seems like they do but they actually don't if you look

a lot of them don't reach as you can see so these little side members I would hold them up because they don't lean up against the top very simple it's not even necessary you can just keep laying stuff on there and make it thick enough so the small stuff just lays on top of all the things but it was something I wanted to do a little bit of a modification so I can use materials that are less than ideal materials that have Bend materials that aren't perfect so that way instead of swinging in they all stop the same exact place giving me definite walls the footprint is pretty large

it's probably close to 10 feet across I guess 9 or 10 and the front would be out here somewhere if it continued a circle it's pretty large in there okay so there really isn't too much to explain I think I'm gonna just do the work and record it while I'm doing it beautiful sassafras right here mind if I do alright let's take a look what we got so I'm working about half hour and I put some some bracing in there for the roof add some more sticks to the roof and got quite a bit done on the debris shingles there's a front of shelter keep your size comparison is my backpack and axe so I've half the wall done it's pretty thick too that goes halfway around the shelter so that was a half hours work adding some more sticks in there to close some of the gaps that were too large and throwing on the debris shingles give you an idea what it looks like on this side see the halfway mark right there so about half the height half the distance not too shabby for 1/2 hours work the structure itself took me good afternoon it was a good three hours of cranking away with my axe and folding saw like I said us a few years ago and definitely took some work in my version with the side braces took some cordage - which wasn't necessary but it's something I wanted to do so I could use subpar material I could take stuff right off the ground and use it even though it was really bad and crooked growing it would still lay flat so to me it seemed like that was the best option so I wasn't being greedy taking a whole bunch of a few no straight saplings and stuff so not too bad like I said I think it's about three solid hours for that if I remember right maybe for the max and a half hours so far covering it there's a couple different ways you can cover it you can put little sticks to make X patterns and stuff all the way up and things like that before you put this on there's all different ways to do it and if you do that then you don't need as many braces and many stilts like right there

I have gaps and the rest I would have to do that get a bunch of those little sticks that we use you know for kindling to get our fire started you would just make a lattice work but I figured I'll make it a little more solid than that which is why I went and gathered a bunch of you know dead branches and stuff laying down and just laid them down and filled it filled all those gaps in on the side so it's good and strong and it's going to hold the leaves up for you so you don't do all that extra work and now on the ground I still have tons of kindling so it's not like I took all my quick easy access firewood from around my shelter this will make for the news of viable school thanks for joining me tonight for the first part and the shelter project of resurrecting my woodland wiki appreciate your views your comments need support see you guys in the next part take care

About the Author

NativeSurvival

NativeSurvival

Mitch is a Wilderness Living Skills Instructor, he has been featured on The History Channel's program "ALONE" and written articles for Outdoor Magazines; he owns and operates The Native Survival School which provides woodland living and survival classes, as well as offering quality outdoor gear he's designed. Defintely, he is a master at bushcraft's techniques.

You can find all his videos on his YouTube channel.

More articles from this author