At Brother Bloggers, we are starting a new series of posts about things that you can do in the outdoors or in survival situations. We decided to start with building a shelter.
Why Build a Shelter?
There are lots of reasons to build a shelter, like just for fun, or for camping (roughing it!) but the most important reason is for safety. If you ever find yourself lost in the woods or maybe just too far in to make it out before night, then you will want to be able to build a shelter to sleep in. It can help keep you warm, keep you safe from rain and also to be a barrier between you and critters.
What kind of Shelter?
There are many different kinds of shelters that you can build. The way that you decide which one to build, is by looking around you to find out what resources that you have on hand. It is always a good idea to keep a few things handy when you go into the woods for any reason. It is good to have something to cut wood with, like a machete or a hatchet. It’s also always a good idea to have some sort of rope, like 550 cord or something similar. Another great thing to have with you is something to start a fire with, like a ferro rod and steel wool. (We will get more into making a fire on our next post).
Teepee
This is a good shelter to build if you have a tarp with you. It is easy to put together if you can find a few somewhat straight branches and some rope.
Lean-to
This is very easy construction if you have access to limbs, sticks and thatch.
Debris Shelter
This shelter is great to make if there are plenty of local resources and maybe land formations that will help.
Our Construction– A-Frame Shelter
Step 1. We looked for resources. We chopped down some limbs for the frame of the shelter and some smaller limbs for roof support.
Step 2. We put the frame together. This can be done in several ways, one of the easiest is to lash the framing pieces together with some sort of rope. We found it even easier to use two trees to attach our frame to; the ridge pole is lashed between the two trees.
Step 3. We put some smaller branches through and across the framing limbs.
Step 4. We chopped down some cedar branches and used them as roofing material, laying them all over the A-frame.
Step 5. We gathered a bunch of leaves from the ground and put them on top of the cedar to act as insulation.
We had a bunch of fun putting this shelter together and we look forward to many more posts about things that you can do to help you survive in the woods. Our next post will be about starting a fire in the woods.
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