Shelters, Shacks and Shanties Part 5

Thatching

Soak your straw or hay well in water and smooth it out flat and regular.

The steeper the roofs the longer the thatch will last. In this bog ken our roof happens to be a rounded one, an arched roof; but it is sheltering a temporary house and the thatch will last as long as the shack. While the real pioneer uses whatever material he finds at hand, it does no harm for him to know that to make a really good thatch one should use only straw which is fully ripe and has been thrashed clean with an old-fas.h.i.+oned flail. The straw must be clear of all seed or grain and kept straight, not mussed up, crumpled, and broken. If any grain is left in the straw it will attract field-mice, birds, domestic mice and rats, domestic turkeys and chickens, and these creatures in burrowing and scratching for food will play havoc with the roof.

Fig. 66. Fig. 67. Fig. 68. Fig. 69.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Details of bog ken.]

It is not necessary to have straight and even rafters, because the humps, b.u.mps, and hollows caused by crooked sticks are concealed by the mattress of straw. Take a bundle of thatch in your hands, squeeze it together, and place it so that the b.u.t.t ends project about three inches beyond the floor (_A_, Fig. 66); tie the thatch closely to the lower rafter and the one next above it, using for the purpose twine, marlin, raffia, or well-twisted white hickory bark. This first row should be thus tied near both ends to prevent the wind from getting under it and lifting it up.

Next put on another row of wisps of thatch over the first and the b.u.t.t ends come even with the first, but tie this one to the third row of rafters not shown in diagram. The b.u.t.ts of the third row of thatch (_B_, Fig. 66) should be about nine inches up on the front rows; put this on as before and proceed the same way with _C_, _D_, _E_, and _F_, Fig. 66, until the roof is completed. The thatch should be ten or twelve inches thick for a permanent hut but need not be so for a temporary shed.

As there is no comb to this roof the top must be protected where the thatches from each side join, and to do this fasten a thatch over the top and bind it on both sides but not in the middle, so that it covers the meeting of the thatches on both sides of the shack; this top piece should be st.i.tched or bound on with wire if you have it, or fastened with willow withe or even wisps of straw if you are an expert. A house, twenty by thirty feet, made of material found on the place and thatched with straw costs the builder only fifty cents for nails and four days' work for two persons. A good thatched roof will last as long as a modern s.h.i.+ngle roof, for in olden days when s.h.i.+ngles were good and split out of blocks, not sawed, and were well seasoned before using, they were not expected to last much over fifteen years; a well-made thatched roof will last fifteen or twenty years.

Fig. 70.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snow-shoe foundation for bog ken.]

But a real bog ken is one that is built over boggy or marshy places too soft to support an ordinary structure. To overcome this difficulty required considerable study and experiment, but at length the author hit upon a simple plan which has proved effective. If you wish to build a duck hunter's camp on the soft meadows, or for any other reason you desire a camp on treacherous, boggy ground, you may build one by first making a thick mattress of twigs and sticks as shown by Fig. 70. This mattress acts on the principle of a snow-shoe and prevents your house from sinking by distributing the weight equally over a wide surface. The mattress should be carefully made of sticks having their branches trimmed off sufficiently to allow them to lie in regular courses as in the diagram. The first course should be laid one way and the next course at right angles to the first, and so on, until the mattress is sufficiently thick for the purpose.

Standing on the mattress, it will be an easy matter with your hands to force the sharpened ends of your upright posts _A_, _B_, _C_, and _D_ down into the yielding mud, but be careful not to push them too far because in some of these marshes the mud is practically bottomless. It is only necessary for the supports to sink in the mud far enough to make them stand upright.

Fig. 71.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Framework of simple bog ken.]

The next step is to lay, at right angles to the top layer of brush, a series of rods or poles between your uprights as shown in Fig. 70; then take two more poles, place them at right angles to the last ones, and press them down until they fit snugly on top of the other poles, and there nail them fast to the uprights as shown in Fig. 70, after which to further bind them you may nail a diagonal from _A_ to _D_ and _B_ to _C_, but this may not be necessary.

When you have proceeded thus far you may erect a framework like that shown in Fig. 71, and build a platform by flooring the crosspieces or horizontal bars with halves of small logs, Fig. 71.

It is now a simple matter to erect a shack which may be roofed with bark as in Fig. 72 or thatched as in Fig. 74. Fig. 72 shows the unfinished shack in order that its construction may be easily seen; this one is being roofed with birch bark. A fireplace may be made by enclosing a bed of mud (Fig. 73) between or inside of the square formed by four logs. On this clay or mud you can build your camp-fire or cooking fire or mosquito smudge with little or no danger of setting fire to your house.

The mosquito smudge will not be found necessary if there is any breeze blowing at all, because these insects cling to the salt hay or bog-gra.s.s and do not rise above it except in close, muggy weather where no breeze disturbs them. I have slept a few feet over bog meadows without being disturbed by mosquitoes when every blade of gra.s.s on the meadows was black with these insects, but there was a breeze blowing which kept the mosquitoes at home.

Fig. 72. Fig. 73. Fig. 74.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Adaptation of a bark shack to the bog ken foundation.]

XIV

OVER-WATER CAMPS

NOW that we know how to camp on solid ground and on the quaking bog we cannot finish up the subject of stilt camps without including one over-water camp. If the water has a muddy bottom it is a simple matter to force your supporting posts into the mud; this may be done by driving them in with a wooden mallet made of a section of log or it may be done by fastening poles on each side of the post and having a crowd of men jump up and down on the poles until the posts are forced into the bottom.

If you are building a pretentious structure the piles may be driven with the ordinary pile-driver. But if your camp on the water is over a hard bottom of rock or sand through which you cannot force your supports you may take a lot of old barrels (Fig. 75), knock the tops and bottoms out of them, nail some cross planks on the ends of your spiles, slide the barrels over the spiles, then set them in place in the water and hold them there by filling the barrels with rocks, stones, or coa.r.s.e gravel. Fig. 77 shows a foundation made in this manner; this method is also useful in building piers (Fig. 78). But if you are in the woods, out of reach of barrels or other civilized lumber, you can make yourself cribs by driving a square or a circle of sticks in the ground a short distance and then twining roots or pliable branches inside and outside the stakes, basket fas.h.i.+on, as shown in Fig. 76. When the crib is complete it may be carefully removed from the ground and used as the barrels were used by filling them with stones to support the uprights. Fig. 79 shows an ordinary portable house such as are advertised in all the sportsmen's papers, which has been erected upon a platform over the water.

Fig. 75. Fig. 76. Fig. 77. Fig. 78. Fig. 79.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Showing how to make foundations for over-water camps.]

My experience with this sort of work leads me to advise the use of piles upon which to build in place of piers of stones. Where I have used such piers upon small inland lakes the tremendous push of the freezing ice has upset them, whereas the ice seems to slide around the piles without pus.h.i.+ng them over. The real danger with piles lies in the fact that if the water rises after the ice has frozen around the uprights the water will lift the ice up and the ice will sometimes pull the piles out of the bottom like a dentist pulls teeth. Nevertheless, piles are much better for a foundation for a camp or pier than any crib of rocks, and that is the reason I have shown the cribs in Figs. 75 and 77, made so as to rest upon the bottom supposedly below the level of the winter ice.

XV

SIGNAL-TOWER, GAME LOOKOUT, AND RUSTIC OBSERVATORY

IF my present reader happens to be a Boy Scout or a scout-master who wants the scouts to build a tower for exhibition purposes, he can do so by following the directions here given, but if there is real necessity for haste in the erection of this tower, of course we cannot build one as tall as we might where we have more time. With a small tower all the joints may be quickly lashed together with strong, heavy twine, rope, or even wire; and in the wilderness it will probably be necessary to bind the joints with pliable roots, or cordage made of bark or withes; but as this is not a book on woodcraft we will suppose that the reader has secured the proper material for fastening the joints of the frame of this signal-tower and he must now shoulder his axe and go to the woods in order to secure the necessary timber. First let him cut eight straight poles--that is, as straight as he can find them. These poles should be about four and one half inches in diameter at their base and sixteen and one half feet long.

After all the branches are trimmed off the poles, cut four more sticks each nine feet long and two and a half or three inches in diameter at the base; when these are trimmed into shape one will need twenty six or seven more stout sticks each four and one half feet long for braces and for flooring for the platform.

Kite Frame

It being supposed that your timber is now all in readiness at the spot where you are to erect the tower, begin by laying out on the ground what we call the "kite frame." First take three of the four-and-one-half-foot sticks, _A_, _B_, _C_ (Fig. 82), and two of the nine-foot sticks _D_ and _E_ (Fig. 82), and, placing them on a level stretch of ground, arrange them in the form of a parallelogram. Put _A_ for the top rail at the top of the parallelogram and _C_ for the bottom of the parallelogram and let them rest upon the sides _D_ and _E_, but put _B_ under the sides _D_ and _E_. In order to bind these together securely, the ends of all the sticks must be allowed to project a few inches. _B_ should be far enough below _A_ to give the proper height for a railing around the platform. The platform itself rests upon _B_. _A_ forms the top railing to the fence around it.

Now take two of your sixteen-and-one-half-foot poles and place them diagonally from corner to corner of the parallelogram with the small ends of the poles lying over the ends of _A_ and the b.u.t.t ends of the poles extending beyond _C_, as in Fig. 82. Lash these poles securely in place.

Where the poles cross each other in the _X_, or centre, it is best to flatten them some by scoring and hewing with a hatchet, but care must be taken not to weaken them by scoring too deep. Next take your lash rope, double it, run the loop down under the cross sticks, bring it up on the other side, as in Fig. 83, then pull the two loose ends through the loop.

When they are drawn taut (Fig. 84), bend them round in opposite directions--that is, bend the right-hand end of the rope to the right, down and under the cross sticks, pull it out to the left, as in Fig. 84, then bend the left-hand piece of rope to the left, down and under, pulling it out to the right, as in Fig. 84. Next bring those two pieces up over and tie them together in a square knot, as shown in Figs. 85 and 86.

Fig. 80. Fig. 81. Fig. 82. Fig. 83. Fig. 84. Fig. 85. Fig. 86.

Fig. 87.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Parts of tower for a wireless, a game lookout, an elevated camp or cache.]

Make a duplicate "kite" frame for the other side exactly as you made the first one, and then arrange these two pieces on the ground with the cross sticks _F_ and _F_ on the under-side and with their b.u.t.t ends opposite the b.u.t.ts of the similar poles on the other frame and about five feet apart.

Fasten a long line to the point where the two _F_ pieces cross each other and detail a couple of scouts to hold each of the b.u.t.t ends from slipping by placing one of their feet against the b.u.t.t, as in Fig. 82, while two gangs of men or boys pull on the ropes and raise the kite frames to the positions shown in Figs. 81 and 88.

Be careful, when raising the frames, not to pull them too far so that they may fall on some unwary workman. When the frames are once erected it is an easy matter to hold them in place by guy-ropes fastened to stones, stakes, or trees or held by men or boys, while some of the shorter braces are fastened to hold the two kite frames together, as in Fig. 90, wherein you may see these short braces at the top and bottom. Next, the two other long sticks, legs, or braces (_G_, _G_, Figs. 89 and 90) should be held temporarily in position and the place marked where they cross each other in the centre of the parallelogram which should be the same as it is on the legs of the two kite frames. The _G_ sticks should now be lashed together at the crossing point, as already described and shown by Figs.

83, 84, 85, and 86, when they may be put up against the sides, as in Fig.

89, in which diagram the _G_ poles are made very dark and the kite frames indicated very lightly so as to better show their relative positions. Lash the _G_ poles at the top and at the other points where they cross the other braces and secure the framework by adding short braces, as indicated in Fig. 90.

Fig. 88. Fig. 89. Fig. 90. Fig. 90A.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Details of scout signal-tower or game lookout.]

If all the parts are bound together with wire it will hold them more securely than nails, with no danger of the poles splitting. A permanent tower of this kind may be erected on which a camp may be built, as shown in Fig. 87. It may be well to note that in the last diagram the tower is only indicated by a few lines of the frame in order to simplify it and prevent confusion caused by the multiplicity of poles.

Boy-Scout Tower

If you desire to make a tower taller than the one described it would be best, perhaps, to take the regular Boy-Scout dimensions as given by Scout-master A. G. Clarke: