Primitive Shelters

We started Primitive Shelters two weeks ago and the boys are really digging it! I'm curious if anyone can point me to a good source of additional information about such shelters. In particular looking for methods of thatching a roof. The information in the merit material is fairly general. Are there techniques for thatching a roof, or do you just keep layering up your material from bottom to top?

Will you always have drips make it through?

Also any other info about building better shelters that you may have would be good too. Thank you.

here are some
http://www.woodlandsurvival.com/shelter.htm

http://www.fieldandstream.com/node/1000014416

If you use water an dirt to make mud you can patch holes. Depending on foilage you should be able thatch it good without mud.

Check BSA field manuals for info too.

http://www.primitiveskillslinks.com/shelter.html

Does your district offer Jr Survival Camp? Adult leaders are supposed to be able to take them as Action Camps and they count as an elective toward Advanced level OLAL. The Jr Winter Camp would cover the winter type shelters you can make.

I'll have to see what our district offers, but I don't seem to remember seeing anything like that off hand. Thank you guys for the links. I looked at them briefly and see that there's a good bit of info to read there.

Looks like thickness is the key for a debris roof.

I've taught this for my outpost as well as at our state Pow Wow and worked up some booklets I like in the field.

Primative Shelters - print

Primative Shelters - digital

For additional reading, my top pick is Tom Brown Field Guide to Wilderness Survival. He has an approach based on you are Raptured into the wilderness naked, or maybe you always carry a knife so assumes that is all you have. A very all natural, no gear needed approach.

Specific you your dripping question, Water proof isn't like bullet proof. you're not trying to stop the rain. you are trying to make it flow over your shelter away from the interior. Angle is important as is material. If you can, try some sort of ribbed frame. Dried grasses on for insulation, then large leaves if you can, or lots of normal ones. Or if you are very lucky large slabs of bark.
Here are some pics of my last Survival Camp.

Wow! Looks great! Thank you strods. I'll definitely be printing this out.

Law of 3

Try this too.
This is a subject of passion. We founded my outpost on the Wilderness Survival training, so I have stacks of books and material on the subject, (and a fair bit of experience).

Awesome! Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do before Friday night. I wish I'd gotten ahold of this info BEFORE I started this merit..... Oh well, I'll just do the best I can this go around.

Nice job, Strods.

You've got quite a hamlet going there.

lol the two shelters near by are mine on the right and my co commander on the left. We wanted our own space but didn't see the need for 2 fires. The three boys who went with us were welcome but wanted "space" and their own fire. This was a late Iowa October, under 30, and the next morning we hiked out in snow. The boys learned the value of fire and teamwork.

Looking at the structures, it also shows why fires were so dangerous in communities, years ago.

Howdy!

A good shelter must have a good roof. Yes, layers of leaves and sticks or something natural to use (cattails), altering from a thick layer of leaves, something to hold them down, then another layer of leaves , then something to hold them down again. By thick, I mean as thick as you can get them. Leaves are a great insulator from both rain or cold stuff.

One thing I like to teach is a shelter only needs to be a big as you need, not as big as a tent. If im alone and lost, I will only build a shelter big enough to fit me. Holds my heat it better, takes less resources to build, and does not take as long to build.

Yes, eventually depending on the duration of a rain storm, it may drip inside. But, I would rather deal with drips than a downpour.

For me and coming from a historical mindset, I would also factor in my kit, meaning wool blanket. I would supplement the shelter with the blanket over me to keep my somewhat dry. Wool is great, and retains its heating capacity up to 80% when wet.

You can also use bark. Elm bark is easy to get, especially when theres so many dead elms out there.

Well I'm stepping up and teaching this merit at Pow Wow this year. I have half a mind to video it for future teaching sessions. Anyone interested?

Always interested in good training material. Of course I still haven't seen those videos that you got from Bruce yet....   

I posted this under a event heading but here is our 10 person survival campout. It was a lot of fun.

http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2014SurvivalCampout/2014survivalcampout.htm