A shelter can protect you from the sun, insects, wind, rain, snow, hot or cold temperatures, and
enemy observation. It can give you a feeling of well-being. It can help you maintain your will to
survive.
In some areas, your need for shelter may take precedence over your need for food and possibly
even your need for water. For example, prolonged exposure to cold can cause excessive
fatigue and weakness (exhaustion). An exhausted person may develop a "passive" outlook,
thereby losing the will to survive.
The most common error in making a shelter is to make it too large. A shelter must be large
enough to protect you. It must also be small enough to contain your body heat, especially in
cold climates.
The right army
poncho will
make a very
decent small
shelter from
the rain as is,
or with
homemade
stakes made
from an old
tent, like the
photo shows.
Of course IF you must leave your homes,
your home being the best asset You have in an
emergency; I will have to be extricated from mine before survival mode kicks in, trailers and
tents are of course optimal.
This a video on poncho shelter:
http://youtu.be/lMhEnNsd06g
Read more at
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=297684#c8O68TUVuqsGbm7W.99
Otherwise, natural shelters, as most survival
shows demonstrate, are easy to construct if you've
been paying attention. Following are a few
examples.
My favorite resource on primitive shelters and primitive camping is offered by the Women Of
The Fur Trade on how to make an oil cloth out of a King size bedsheet and use that as a very
lightweight tarp in all kinds of configurations. An excerpt follows:
Bed and shelter:
Oilcloth makes our shelter, goes over and under our bed
to hold the heat in, and is the outer wrap on our bedrolls
when we pack in. We made ours out of 100% Egyptian
sheeting 240 thread count , which we bought as a king
size sheet at the department store. This is very
lightweight which is a plus when you're packing it in on
your back. Two wool blankets should do you fine for the
warm weather, but in winter add a buffalo robe for sure.
We like to use a little buffalo epishamore underneath the
blankets even in nice weather, just for added comfort.
Lay out the tarp/oilcloth, lay blankets on top, add any
clothes you need, and roll it up , tie it, and you're ready to
go.Tie your burden strap to the bedroll and head out.
If you're on a horse, the blankets folded in fourths become your saddle blankets, the oilcloth
makes a tiny roll behind your saddle, and the food carry in Indian type saddle bags. These are
just a tube of buckskin with a slit cut in the middle. Food goes in both ends and any extra
clothes go in where the slit is. Put it right on the seat of the saddle and the clothes make extra
padding on those long rides.
A trick for comfort is to dig a hip hole and shoulder hole. Lay down and test the holes and
make
adjustments
before you lay
out the
blankets.
Tying your
blankets
together at
the foot keeps
cold drafts
out.
For
shelter, we set up the oilcloth diamond fly style, which is
very versatile. It can be tied to a tree limb, or a pole laid
in the middle and then staked out. It can even be set up
like a wedge tent.
A Personal note from one of the Sisters of the Fur Trade.
A few issues back in the T&LR, Jim Hannon wrote of a new fly that he'd made.
Jim used a 100% cotton King size sheet. It was made of Egyptian cotton, with a 250 thread
count. Jim and I are friends and so I contacted him to see how it had worked out. Jim told me
that he'd had good luck with his, so I figured I'd try it out.
I procured the sheet at our local Dillards store. It turns out that 250 threat count sheets are not
all that common, and worse, not cheap. Cheap is always high on the priority list, but so is weight
savings, and this was my goal here.
After getting the sheet I washed it to remove any sizing, then I proceeded to undo the factory
sewn hems. This is when I learned that a King size sheet is pretty big! It took a while, but finally
I got it done.
Next was to get the lindseed oil and paint thinner together. Jim recommended 2 parts linseed oil
to 1 part paint thinner, so that's what I went with. I got 2 quarts of linseed oil to go with 1 quart of
paint thinner. It is recommended to add a little iron oxide pigment in the mix for
color. Rick Palmer provided me with some, which was a reddish brown color. I mixed the mess
together in a bucket, in went the sheet. The 3 quarts of liquid was just right for that size of sheet.
Here's a major tip.....wear LONG rubber gloves when you mix up the sheet and liquid. The
mixture really sticks and the pigment is highly effective. Wear clothes that you don't mind
relegating to work and not social occasions!
I hung the sheet up to dry in the barn. Using 2 lines attached to the exposed rafters I draped the
sheet over the lines to dry. Another tip. If you have the room, only hang the sheet from a single
line. This way the liquid will drip off more evenly than mine did. Also, plan on at least a
week of drying time in warm weather.
I took the sheet/tarp along with me on our 5 day ride in 2002. I found it to be completely
waterproof. The pigment was a little more red than I'd hoped, but at night it was actually harder
to see than a darker brown one that Jim used.
What would I do different? I think the major difference would be, having ripped out the factory
hem, I'd sew in a hand-sewn hem. In a pretty good wind storm before a rain, the corner of my
sheet/tarp tore. We'd set it as a wedge tent and one staked down corner ripped a little. We
worked around it, but I think that having a hem would have prevented the problem.
Overall, I'm really happy with this project. It's considerably lighter and much more waterproof
than my canvas fly. These were the goals I was hoping for in the new sheet/tarp, and these
goals were accomplished.
Full article here : http://www.womenofthefurtrade.com/wst_page5.html
Another on oil cloth making
http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=smalser&file=articles_368.shtml
So there you have it, practice in the backyard for FHE or for fun, around a fire, even in your
mind is better than nothing. I do most of my planning this way for years.
Support your little scouts, eat their hot dogs cooked eagerly on their buddy burners, and very
soon they will show you how to build and survive in a wolf den-like snow cave ( am shuddering
with claustrophobia remembering) and maybe make snow shoes for a trek.