the Handbook for Primitive Living

in the Twenty-First Century.

Imagine if tomorrow you had no hydro, no running water, no fuel, no phone. How could you survive? This site is a thought experiment designed to answer that question.

noted on Mon, 20 Oct 2003

Snow Shelters

A debris hut is good shelter when you can readily find dry leaves, branches, grasses, and other materials. What happens if all of that useful shelter-building material is hidden under a big pile of snow? Naturally, you build a snow shelter instead.

There are many different ways to build a snow shelter, but all of them share a few key features:

• Thick walls: Snow is a good insulator, but not exactly a stellar building material. Make sure you walls are good and thick to prevent collapse.
• Elevated sleep platform: Cold air sinks, so it’s a good idea to dig a trench beside your sleep or rest platform, or dig such a space above your ‘floor’.
• Ventilation: A good snow shelter can also be very airtight. Be sure you have a small hole in the top of your structure to provide you with some fresh air. Warm and cozy should not equal ‘suffocated’.

You can decide for yourself what kind of structure you want to build, but it will largely be dictated by the quantity and quality of snow around you. Just remember that snow insulates well but also melts, so you can surround yourself and keep warm, but try to also find a method to keep dry.

noted on Thu, 16 Oct 2003

Making An Overnight Shelter

Most of us will never find ourselves lost in the woods with night falling. Most of us would also not know what to do if we did end up in that situation. Luckily, there is an excellent article explaining how to build a debris hut out of materials easily found out in the bush.

A debris hut is nothing more than a pile of debris, like leaves, dry grasses, branches, and whatever else is lying around, with a spot for you to sleep and some protection from blowing away. Think of it as a tent within a tent. Build a tent skeleton from sticks, pile as much debris on as you can, add another tent of branches to keep your pile from blowing away, and you’ve got a cozy nest to sleep in.

This method could also be easily adapted for the urban environment. Paper, cardboard, and plastic wrap would replace debris, and posts, bars, lengths of wood or steel could be the structural elements. Of course, in an urban environment you’re more likely to find shelter of a more permanent and secure sort, but it’s good to have options.

noted on Tue, 23 Sep 2003

Making Adobe Bricks

You require some form of shelter. Be it snow, wind, rain, or sun that you need to escape, you need shelter. Unless you’re nomadic, you will probably want something semi-permanent.

One solution for Do-It-Yourselfers is to build using adobe bricks. Adobe structures extremely varied in their construction, but I’m going to concentrate on adobe bricks specifically. As long as you have access to water, sand, and clay-rich soil, you can make adobe bricks. Optional materials that would give your bricks further strength would be straw, dried grass, or other similar materials.

There are many online resources explaining how to make adobe bricks so I’ll paraphrase:

1. Find some clay-rich soil, sand, and water.
2. Mix a quantity of sand into a quantity clay (note quantities of each), and add water. Try to make a mud ball that holds together, doesn’t crack, but pulls apart with some force. Add sand, clay, and water as needed until you find the right consistency, further noting your additions.
3. Form your clay-sand mixture into a brick. This can be done by hand, in a shoebox, in a wooden form, or however you choose.
4. Remove the brick from the form and let it dry. After it becomes hard enough to handle, set it on edge to further speed drying. Allow a few days to dry.
5. If cracks appear in the brick, too much clay has been used. Add more sand to your mixture and try again.
6. Perform a drop test on a brick from waist height. If the brick shatters, too much sand was used in the brick. Use less sand and try another batch.

It would be wise to make a small test batch to ensure you have your mixture correct before making hundreds of cracked or brittle bricks.

One word of caution - adobe bricks are simply clay, sand, and water. Don’t expect them to be waterproof, or to last very long unprotected from the rain. Use an exterior cover and/or a wide roof overhang to shield your adobe from undue moisture, and keep an eye on drainage around your shelter.