Shelters, Shacks and Shanties Part 2

Material

IN building a shelter use every and any thing handy for the purpose; ofttimes an uprooted tree will furnish a well-made adobe wall, where the spreading roots have torn off the surface soil as the tree fell and what was the under-side is now an exposed wall of clay, against which you may rest the poles for the roof of a lean-to. Or the side of the cliff (Fig.

23) may offer you the same opportunity. Maybe two or three trees will be found willing to act as uprights (Fig. 24). Where you use a wall of any kind, rock, roots, or bank, it will, of course, be necessary to have your doorway at one side of the shack as in Fig. 23. The upright poles may be on stony ground where their b.u.t.ts cannot well be planted in the earth, and there it will be necessary to brace them with slanting poles (Fig. 25).

Each camp will offer problems of its own, problems which add much to the interest and pleasure of camp making.

Beaver Mat

The beaver-mat camp is a new one and, under favorable conditions, a good one. Cut your poles the length required for the framework of the sides, lash them together with the green rootlets of the tamarack or strips of bark of the papaw, elm, cedar, or the inside bark of the chestnut (_A_, Fig. 22); then make a bed of browse of any kind handy, but make it in the manner described for making balsam beds (Fig. 7). You will, of course, thatch so that when the side is erected it is s.h.i.+ngled like a house, the upper rows overlapping the lower ones. Then lash a duplicate frame over the browse-padded frame and the side is complete (_B_, Fig. 22). Make the other side or sides and the roof (_C_, Fig. 22) in the same manner, after which it is a simple matter to erect your shack (Fig. 22, and _E_, Fig.

22).

Fig. 22. Fig. 23. Fig. 24. Fig. 25. Fig. 26. Fig. 27. Fig. 28.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Shelters adapted to conditions. The beaver-mat and the f.a.got shack.]

The great advantage of this sort of shelter is that it is much easier to do your thatching on the ground than on standing walls, and also, when done, it is so compact as to be practically water-proof.

f.a.got Shack

The f.a.got shack is also a new style of camp and is intended for use in places where large timber cannot be cut, but where dwarf willows, bamboo cane, alders, or other small underbrush is more or less plentiful. From this gather a plentiful supply of twigs and with improvised twine bind the twigs into bundles of equal size. Use these bundles as you would stones in building the wall and lay them so as to break joints, that is, so that the joints are never in a continuous line. Hold the wall in place by stakes as shown in Fig. 26. Use the browse, small twigs with the leaves adhering to them, in place of mortar or cement so as to level your bundles and prevent their rocking on uneven surfaces. The doorways and window openings offer no problem that a rank outsider cannot solve. Fig. 27 shows the window opening, also shows you how the window-sill can be made firm by laying rods over the top of the f.a.gots. Rods are also used across the top of the doorway upon which to place the bundles of f.a.gots or twigs. Twigs is probably the best term to use here, as f.a.gots might be thought to mean larger sticks, which may be stiff and obstinate and hard to handle.

Roofs

After the walls are erected, a beaver-mat roof may be placed upon them or a roof made on a frame such as shown in Fig. 28 and thatched with small sticks over which a thatch of straw, hay, rushes (Figs. 66 and 69), or browse may be used to shed the rain.

One great advantage which recommends the beaver-mat and f.a.got camp to lovers of nature and students of forestry lies in the fact that it is unnecessary to cut down or destroy a single large or valuable young tree in order to procure the material necessary to make the camp. Both of these camps can be made in forest lands by using the lower branches of the trees, which, when properly cut close to the trunk (Fig. 121), do not injure the standing timber. The f.a.got hut may be made into a permanent camp by plastering the outside with soft mud or clay and treating the inside walls in the same manner, thus transforming it into an adobe shack.

VI

INDIAN SHACKS AND SHELTERS

WHILE the ingenuity of the white man may make improvements upon the wick-ups, arbors, huts, and shelters of the native red man, we must not forget that these native shelters have been used with success by the Indians for centuries, also we must not forget that our princ.i.p.al objection to many of them lies in the fact that they are ill ventilated and dirty, both of which defects may be remedied without materially departing from the lines laid down by the savage architects. The making of windows will supply ventilation to Indian huts, but the form of the hut we must bear in mind is made to suit the locality in which we find it.

Apache Hogan

The White Mountain Apache builds a tent-shaped shack (Figs. 29 and 32) which is practically the same as that already described and shown in Figs.

18 and 19, the difference being that the Apache shack is not covered with birch bark, a material peculiar to the North, but the Apache uses a thatch of the rank gra.s.s to be found where his shacks are located. To-day, however, the White Mountain Apache has become so degenerate and so lost to the true sense of dignity as a savage that he stoops to use corn-stalks with which to thatch the long, sloping sides of his shed-like house but by so doing he really shows good horse sense, for corn-stalks and corn leaves make good material for the purpose.

Fig. 29. Fig. 30. Fig. 31. Fig. 32. Fig. 33. Fig. 34. Fig. 34.

Fig. 35.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Designs adapted from Indian models.]

San Carlos Shack

The San Carlos Apache Indians build a dome-shaped hut by making a framework of small saplings bent in arches as the boys did in Kentucky when the writer was himself a lad, and as shown in Fig. 30. The ends of the pole are sunk into the ground in the form of a circle, while their tips are bent over and bound together thus forming a series of loops which overlap each other and give stability and support to the princ.i.p.al loops which run from the ground to the top of the dome. The Indians thatch these huts with bear-gra.s.s arranged in overlapping rows and held in place with strings (see Fig. 69) made of yucca leaves (Fig. 31).

Chippewa Shack

Much farther north I have seen the Chippewa Indians build a framework in practically the same manner as the San Carlos Apache, but the Chippewas covered their frame with layers of birch bark held in place by ropes stretched over it as shown in Fig. 32. The door to their huts consisted of a blanket portiere.

In the same locality to-day it would be difficult if not impossible to procure such large strips of birch bark; but the dome-shaped frame is a good one to be used in many localities and, like all other frames, it can be covered with the material at hand. It may be s.h.i.+ngled with smaller pieces of bark, covered with brush and thatched with browse or with hay, straw, palmetto leaves, palm leaves, or rushes, or it may be plastered over with mud and made an adobe hut.

Pima Lodge

The Pima Indians make a flat-roofed lodge with slanting walls (Fig. 33) which may be adapted for our use in almost any section of the country. It can be made warm and tight for the far North and cool and airy for the arid regions of the Southwest. The framework, as you may see by referring to the diagram, is similar to the wick-ups we men made when we were boys, and which are described in the "American Boy's Handy Book," consisting of four upright posts supporting in their crotches two crosspieces over which a flat roof is made by placing poles across. But the sides of this shack are not upright but made by resting leaning poles against the eaves.

White Man's Walls

The princ.i.p.al difference between a white man's architecture and the Indian's lies in the fact that the white man, with brick, stone, or frame house in his mind, is possessed of a desire to build perpendicular walls--walls which are hard to thatch and difficult to cover with turf, especially in the far North, where there is no true sod such as we understand in the middle country, where our gra.s.s grows thickly with interlacing roots. Boys will do well to remember this and imitate the Indian in making slanting walls for their shacks, shanties, and shelters in the woods. If they have boards or stone or brick or logs with which to build they may, with propriety, use a perpendicular wall. The Pima Indians, according to Pliny Earle G.o.ddard, a.s.sociate curator of anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History, thatch their houses with arrow brush and not infrequently bank the sides of the shack with dirt.

Adobe Roof

If you want to put a dirt roof on a shack of this description, cover the poles with small boughs or browse, green or dry leaves, straw, hay, gra.s.s, or rushes and put the sod over the top of this. If in place of making the roof flat, as shown in Fig. 33, you slant it so as to shed the rain, this sort of shack will do for almost any climate, but with a flat roof it is only fitted for the arid country or for a shelter from the sun when it is not expected to be used during the rain.

Navajo

The teepee-shaped hut used by the Navajo Indians _will_ shed the rain. To build this shack interlock three forked sticks as shown in the diagram, then lay other poles up against the forks of these sticks so that the b.u.t.ts of the poles will form a circle on the ground (Fig. 34). Thatch this with any material handy, after which you may cover it with dirt as the Navajos do, in which case you had better build a hallway for entrance, as shown in Fig. 35. This same teepee form is used by the California Indians and thatched with wild hay (Fig. 34).

VII

BIRCH BARK OR TAR PAPER SHACK

A DESCRIPTION of the Pontiac was first published in my "Field and Forest Handy Book," a book which contains several shelters similar to the ones here given, most of which were originally made for Caspar Whitney while he was editor of _Outing_.

The Pontiac

The Pontiac, as here given, is my own design and invention (Fig. 36). It is supposed to be s.h.i.+ngled with birch bark, but, as is the case with all these camps, other bark may be subst.i.tuted for the birch, and, if no bark is within reach and you are near enough to civilization, tar paper makes an excellent subst.i.tute. Fig. 37 shows the framework of a Pontiac with a ridge-pole, but the ridge-pole is not necessary and the shack may be built without it, as shown in Figs. 36 and 39, where the rafter poles rest upon the two side-plates over which they project to form the apex of the roof.

In Fig. 39, although the side-plates are drawn, the rafter or roof poles are not because the diagram is supposed to be a sort of X-ray affair to show the internal construction. The opening for smoke need not be more than half as large as it is in Fig. 39 and it may be covered up in inclement weather with a piece of bark so as to keep out the rain.