Hi, I’m Tim Mac Welch, and this is Rick Houston of earth connections school of wilderness survival and ancient skills. Now were going to show you how to build a hut out of sticks and leaves so to keep you warm, and even to some of the coldest weather.
So the first thing you want to think about was shelter construction is the location. Where you want to put your shelter?
First we want to look at the ground and make sure that there’s nothing on the ground that causes any trouble, in warmer weather we would want to avoid ants and ground dwelling yellow jacket bees, so we would look for any insect movement or any tiny holes in the ground that might have bees coming in and out, so we checked the ground we don’t see any that here, the rest of the year we want to avoid holes about the size of the quarter, these holes could have anything from snake to nails in there, but nails is a-not such a big problem, but the snakes that eat them could be, so we would not want any holes in the ground bigger than a, who would want to have any holes in the ground the size of a quarter or bigger.
We have set up a beam, this should be about as bigger round as a person arm or leg and used to be strong and sturdy, about two hands spans, or two distances of your hands away from your torso is about the right height for the shelter. It could be a little taller or little shorter, and if you showing it needs to be sturdy. To be able to support most of your body weight on this pole, because there will be a fair amount of sticks and leaves putting pressure down on this main support beam.
So we got the beam in place we test it with some body weight, it will hold me so it will hold some sticks and lace, we want to put the sticks on In a way that there not too wide, so that we have unnecessary air space and shelter, which would actually cool us down, or to keep it pretty tight, pretty close to our bodies. So that our body heat alone heats the shelter, so it used to be very snug, very tight. And when you need to have enough of an opening so that we can crawl in and out of this without destroying a thing.
So we’re going to put the door way here against the tree. Were going to covet the rest of this frame with sticks, so create a skeleton, that will hold the external leaves that would be covering this hut in their place and then inside we will later fill with leaves, and that will keep those leaves in place.
Now some other points to consider with shelter location would be to look around the shelter area. Are there any things around in the surroundings that cause the problems? Are there any bear scrapes on the trees? Where bears are in the area and marking their territory? Are there any bee nests up in the trees? Are there any branches or dead tree tops that could fall down in a storm, so we really want to consider the ground, our surroundings and up above the shelter for safety issues?
Okay, so were finished the skeleton of our shelter, we got the beam in place, and we got our rib sticks, going down the size of the of the shelter.
Now we’re going to add our leaf covering to the outside of the hut. The leaves serve two purposes, first they keep our body heat inside the shelter, and secondly they protect us from the elements outside. Enough leaves on the shelter could keep the rain out, it will keep the wind out, it will keep the snow up, the ice and everything you name It, it will keep you warm inside and keep the outside where it supposed to be outside.
We also want to cover the shelter completely with leaves. We want to be able to stick our arm down in there and touch the ribs, and have the leaves come all the way up to our armpit. So we want to have about two feet or so of leaves covering the entire shelter and this will keep the rain off us and keep it from getting though.
Here is a leaf hut that has a more finished appearance, we have got almost completely covered with leaves, hues inside, check it out the size to make sure that a person can fit down in there. We also have a little bit of different architecture going on here. We have a pair of sticks, that have forks on each hand and together they hold the main beam that supports the hut. So this is your tent, now we need our sleeping bag.
The sleeping bag component is all the leaves that we would cram inside of this hut multiple times, we will fill it with leaves, crawl in with our bodies and pack them down compress them then fill it again with leaves. So we filled it with leaves several times crawl them and pack it down to make a bed below us, and enough leaves to bob us to act as a blanket. Now we need a little extra to keep persons body heat in here, what we can do is reduce this doorway, bring some more sticks down, bring some more leaves down and make a very small tunnel like opening.
Now if you have a extra garment or even a blanket in a hut like this, the best to use for this blanket is going to be a door to keep any body heat that’s trying to escape out of the opening inside the hut. So something like this will act as both the door, and they signal for your rescuers to find you, because the hut made of sticks and leaves blends in with all the other sticks and leaves in the forest, and you can be a asleep in here, and your rescue could walk right on by. So the blanket employed as a door, it will keep you warmer, and give a visual signal so that you could be rescued.
So that s how to build a hut out of sticks and leaves, so to keep you warm in extremely bad weather. Next were going to work on our survival property of water, how to find it, and how to purify it.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services