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What Would I Change About the Log Cabin? | Snowmobile Decision

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#logcabin #offgrid #canadianwilderness

There is one thing I would consider changing about the log cabin design. Winter has arrived and it's already a bad one, which means I need a survival kit for my winter transportation.

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Watch the ENTIRE cabin and Forest Kitchen SERIES here:

HOW TO BUILD A LOG CABIN: https://bit.ly/2nbof06

SEASON 2 - The Interior: https://bit.ly/2CIjPqr

SEASON 3 - The Sauna/Bathhouse: https://bit.ly/2AskJWP

THE FOREST KITCHEN, Building It: https://bit.ly/2M3syZE

SEASON 2 - Outdoor Cooking: https://bit.ly/2CFgQPQ

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P.O. Box 20042

Barrie, Ontario

L4M 6E9

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Links to gear used at the cabin:

Fjallraven Vidda Pro Pants - https://amzn.to/2rhEiMn

Tilley Endurables Airflo Hat - https://amzn.to/2Ia4xy1

Mora Knife - http://amzn.to/2BOiv35

Agawa Canyon Boreal 21 Saw - http://amzn.to/2BPV6OF

Axe - http://www.torontoblacksmith.com/

Moka Pot - http://amzn.to/2DEomvO Canada http://amzn.to/2ndmtw6 USA

Virtus Knife- http://www.virtusknives.com/

Canon 6D - http://amzn.to/2EdaZjs

DJI Mavic Pro - http://amzn.to/2DHuJib

Solar LED light bulb 15W - http://amzn.to/2BQvSQ2

Copper Fairy lights - http://amzn.to/2BCmF0X

Solar String Lights - http://amzn.to/2DvgU2n

Lodge Dutch Oven - http://amzn.to/2kHuxDQ

Bragg’s Sprinkle - http://amzn.to/2EdouzK

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Video Transcription

was just starting to get way too now time is it 7:14 so I think sign ups probably checked out at 7:00 7:40 or something like that so it's not light enough to work outside but let's show you what our day lights like right now so let's date 7:45 and it gets dark at 4:30 don't cal he wants to go out to fetch I'm not ready for least another half an hour Callie

warm up a little bit although it's just snowing there's no Sun coming in today ok not yet wanted to show you the bag that I'm setting up now that winter looks like it's definitely here to stay you have lots of snow load Eretz what do we have it's 2 feet in some places for sure

especially where the ground it snows out in direct contact with the ground cuz the ground is still warm under all that because we got snow before the ground froze but there's quite a bit anyway and the voice it's getting hard to walk already and I'm starting to create paths to all the things that I'd go to regularly and so is she but anything outside of that gets difficult to walk any distance especially so the snow shoes are out i'll start wearing those probably after the next no phone we're supposed to get another 6 inches tonight actually some 15 centimeters of snow maybe another couple tomorrow so lots of snow for traveling hopefully the ice on the lakes is firming up supposed to get some nice cold temperatures over the next few days as well anyway what I'm putting together here is my winter basically traveling safety get Kelly's pump these uplands Hey

so I've got this big oiled canvas wax canvas bag here just quite a large size but it's got a lot of pockets in it and it's really durable so what I'm doing is setting this up as a permanent emergency bag essentially so it'll be something I take on every outdoor trip for the winter and it'll include things like my lady's fishing gear so first aid kit emergency blanket duct tape which is good for everything I use that actually you can use it as a tourniquet can use it as a wound repair to hold wounds together but also any kind of equipment repair as well so I always have duct tape no matter what kind of trips I'm doing I've got spare blades for my ice auger grace fishing curling holes I've got 50 feet of paracord and I'll name off all the other things that I'm still putting together and grabbing from other kits here and also some stuff I still need to purchase here's kind of a giveaway what this is for not to give away but reveal of why I'm putting this bag together this is a heavy heavy duty ratchet strap it's good up to 5,000 pounds I think and that's used for basically as a winch for hauling stuff like a stuck snowmobile out of the snow a couple wrenches you know probably replaced those with fixed wrenches once they know what sizes I need and a whole bunch of other stuff but tarfful have in here I'll have spare fishing gear ice fishing gear I'll have snare wire actually I'm going to be carrying my little survival shotgun folding shotgun

that some folding stuff no shotgun one shot so I still have to add to it some food bars I've got a compass in there shotguns in their little esbit stove got this little tiny stove that you use a little fuel tablets to cook with got a knife that always have an errand algae and bottle water purification tabs a stainless mug that I always used for camping because I can put that right on fire to boil water to make it safe for drinking I'll have at least one candle in there for starting fires headlamp [Music]

warm clothing whistle mirror and axe I'll actually carry my small axe in there at all times and the agawa canyon folding bow saw as well that with the spare blade that will be in that kit and total strap will probably just use that winch as a tow strap or not Ratchet it tarp yeah I've got a couple of really lightweight tarps I'll put one of those in the kit leave it in there for four good have a leather man multi-tool wrenches like I said and spare drive belt and spare spark plugs for the machine no and snow shoes all have snow shoes probably attached to the bag if they're not on me or if they're not attached to the machine somewhere I'm a lot of this stuff I'll actually have on me like first aid kit smaller first aid kit and snare wire extra lighters I'll probably have like five six seven lighters in there plus waterproof matches and some of those will be on my body at all times so in a pocket knife celery Kobe's on my belt a number of things that if I was get separated from my main gear let's say I was to go through the ice in the bag it was not retrievable and I want to make sure I have enough gear on me that I could get a fire going especially and survive I'll probably add also maybe my spot emergency beacon to reactivate that because the cell phone doesn't work soon as I get fifty feet beyond the cabin actually my cell phone doesn't work

I'm just rare thing that it works here at all I just happen to be high enough that I kept there's a tower I guess within reach but typically like I said anywhere else on the property and then beyond the property and on most of the lakes I go to there's no cell phone service so that is what I'm up to I've decided that there's just too much too many things I'm missing out on by not having a machine to get around on up here there's the ice fishing that I mentioned there's retrieving firewood and exploring and it's just too limiting when you get into those deep snow packs at this time of year throughout this winter throughout the winter it gets too deep to travel much other than your regular path so it's just to LeMay I don't want to be sitting around here all winter not having uh not being able to get out there get firewood get fish and explore and probably the bigger issue even though both my wife and I do like to snowshoe and we'll do a lot of snowshoe and almost every day actually in the winter getting her and Kelly to go the distances I want to go it's just not really possible so what the machine allows us to do is to travel further and more often so I'll let you know what that is in an upcoming video what the machine is how we're coming in in Cali and what we're going to be doing with it and soon already actually taking it for a spin here and just on the road in the clothes road this is a dead-end road that we're on here so there's one plowed areas not far up the road so we were able to go down there to test if the machine worked worked well for the three of us so I'll reveal that I don't know in the next few weeks I don't know if it'll be before Christmas or not probably want to be able to show you trail stuff and really want the trails to to or the ground to firm up a little bit and the lakes for to go on any legs but for sure the won't go on the lakes until I know they're a hundred percent and I'll test those but I mean the ground itself is too muddy underneath so getting off trail or off roads or forestry roads means almost guaranteed are gonna get stuck so that's uh that's my announcement for this week but for now I guess I'd better get inside use the trails of how we're gonna dig out all those logs for the sauna before this snow comes tonight I dug what I could have yesterday and it so it crusted nice and heard pack snow because we had that thaw and then we had some rain and then snow on top of that again that it's getting very very difficult to get those over so I better expose them now let the fresh colder snow sit on top and I can easily shovel that off so time to get inside I know you're impatient a lot of people asked me what I would do differently if I was building this cabin from scratch again I probably had some things for one thing when I started the idea of this cabin the plan wasn't to spend this much time and it was more of a sort of a hobby thing or recreation of the cabin and that lifestyle or like the recreational lifestyle that I set up her tried to set up when I was in my early twenties so it wasn't envisioning this being a home it was more of a hunt camp or man cave kind of thing but since it's developed there's things that become more important like the sauna that I'm building and they out hoster it off as a thunder box if you remember that video right near the beginning of this property

which is just a box over a pit with no out hosts around the mill structure to keep you you know out of the elements out of the rain and that and the cold and stuff so that changed the sauna changed the outdoor kitchen it was an afterthought when I realize I need to cook my meals in the summer comfortably all the time not just what I'm like camping or something so some things changed so this cabin itself evolved I was starting off building just a 10 by 10

now basically trappers chanting trapper's cabin and then it evolved on my wife got interested and involved in this and then it doubled in size doubled in height now put the loft in there so pretty much tripled or quadrupled in useable space over my original plan the logs are not gonna get into this next video if you want to keep checking in finally gonna answer the question about how much this cost to build because I finally just calculated it like an hour ago

spent a couple hours going around looking at all the materials make sure I didn't miss anything so the logs have probably would not have changed much so I still end up with these 12-foot logs that you know maximum 10 foot interior wall was all I could get unless I splice these logs which it did down the long side that's a long way of saying that if I could have changed anything I probably would have spent more time leveling this ground out collecting more rocks running the cabin this way so that the broadside is facing south but still have my entrance exactly where it is now but more of the the cabin wall would be facing south to collect sunlight and to collect heat from the Sun so I would have then had say the door in the center a window on both sides and let all that light in from the south now what that also would have allowed me to do is put an air Locker well he's been planning sketching out houses that I want to build ever since I was a teenager and Evans and I always felt very strongly about having what I'm not sure if there's another term for what I call an airlock which is essentially like a mudroom type thing so there would be a building section coming out here with another door so that when you come in you close the one door behind you before you open this one so that none of the cold air is rushing in so my issue right now and the reason I'm explanting Reno is it's hot in there now and but I'm running out of firewood inside so I'm putting more firewood in and I have to leave the door open to do that so I'm leaving it open for like ten minutes and letting all that hot air out or the cold air in so ideally that's one of the changes I would have done I would have changed the orientation the building that would have put a double door and you know if I felt really strongly about it in other words if this cabin was not heating up as much as it was with the stove that I have if I was concerned about you know not being warm enough then I would build an airlock on the inside so I'd step through this door into a little tiny you know four by four by four or five by five room and then have another door going into the cabin the cabin small as you know so that I would hate to do that it would be using up a lot of usable space space that I'm using in there now and I'd have to be concerned about the setback from the stove so it would be very narrow that way and then probably have to come like all the way over to here and then a door may need and then you need to have room for the door to open I guess I could swing it inwards but anyway it was all so dark in the space so very very unlikely that'll ever end up doing it and the other thing is do I end up ever putting a front porch on here at all that's enclosed that remains to be seen as well that's still a possibility for us to do anything to the front here it would be that I guess maybe with full windows even in the front here so it continues to collect sunlight and then light into the cabin I'd probably end up having to put a window in this door and then out of the weather I think if I hadn't to built this outdoor kitchen with this pavilion this would have been a much higher priority project putting a porch on here because there's lots of times nice to sit outside especially all summer and fall with you you know and be dry this overhang is good if the wind is not coming from the south I can stand out here or sit there in the rain but most of the time I can't and the snow is blowing in here too so the Pavilion has been a space that I end up going out hanging out there or doing stuff on the countertops in there even when I'm not cooking because it's a sheltered space so there you go along Oh explanation

[Applause]

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About the Author

My Self Reliance

My Self Reliance

Shawn James Canadian outdoorsman, photographer, guide and self-reliance educator. Writer for Ontario Tourism. myselfreliance.com Outdoor adventures, including survival, bushcraft, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, snowshoeing, fishing and camping.

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