Theres no place like home...

Yesterday i made it out to the hut to a very nice surprise, the fire pit was all dug, the first layer of pine needles were down, and all we were waiting for was some wood for the lodges first fire. It was amazing to see how quickly it got warm inside, and how long it stayed warm. The chimney worked like a charm, all the smoke was able to donut out and it stayed nice and clear inside as long as you kept a flame burning. The last few stages are just going to be making it more comfortable and patching a few spots where light still peeks through.

FINISHED

The final buckets of mud got put on yesterday afternoon and it looks simply amazing! I'll be going out to take more photos and start digging the fire pit and doing all of the other little tasks that need to be done.

The Floor plan

Here is the basic floor plan of the hut. The inner circle is our basic frame made of maple saplings bent over and tied together using basswood bark and grape vine woven for added support. The secondary wall is the same general idea, but constructed very differently. The black circles represent large maple poles that were sunk 1-2 feet into the ground, theses poles are roughly 6 inches in diameter and range from 15-20 feet long. Once the poles are in and angled toward the center you can start to weave maple saplings in and out of the poles. As you start to weave your way up the hut it is important to have a higher concentration of saplings on the bottom where there will be the greatest weight and better chance for the mud to fall through the cracks. As you get higher on the wall you can start spacing the saplings out more and more. As you are building your second wall of saplings up you can start to add your mud or what ever insulating material you plan on using. This space between the walls is what makes this hut work, having that gap to trap air in and keep wind out is the reason why the warm air inside will stay in and the cold will stay out.

The final stages of construction

Got a lot of good work done this weekend. The mud is about 85% up the hut, only 1-2 more sheets of birch will be needed to cover the top all the way around. One more day of a few hours of
bucket hauling and i think we will be finished with the construction portion of the project. Once its all completed, we can start to finish up and tie in any loose ends. We still need to dig out the fire pit and get a few loads of pine needles for a little added comfort and any other decorating that needs to be done to make it nice and comfortable for winter!

Making progress

here are some of the new pictures of how the hut is coming. the wall is about 4 feet all the way around. We also plugged up some holes with all the grass from the marsh.

Back in town finally!

Its been quite a while since my last post and any update on the lodge due to me being MIA in Wisconsin Natl. forests. But my visit to the drum school proved to help out on more than one front. While visiting i got to see some very nicely crafted lodges and primitive shelters. It was cool to see the final product in person. It gave me a nice boost of energy to get ours finished in time for the white season.

While i was gone it looks like they have been had at word back at camp. There is about 3 feet of mud up the hut, only a few more good days of buckets and shovels and i think it will be getting close to a point where its live-able (very loose term). Hopefully ill be able to get out to camp in the very near feature and get some new pictures up and fill everyone in!

Bring me the work horse!

Today was a very excellent day for some work. It started off a little rainy but ended up being one of the best days in months to be able to play outside. Yesterday Derik and Tyler got the door frame up and finished, using a few maple saplings and some dogwood to weave. This morning we gathered more dogwood because the Willow we had been planing to use for the chimney must have floated away out into lake Independence. Once the gathering was finished we headed out for the hut. We made short work of the chimney and digging the post holes for the second wall. Once the posts were in and settled it was time for more gathering, this time we were looking for more maple saplings to weave the poles together. Once we had about a foot of the second wall ready we were able to add the first layer of mud to the mud hut! It was a very exciting weekend and very productive!

Three cheers for public librarys

Yesterday i went down to the county library and asked for for any books with information about native skills or even anything that had a native american author and was surprised to only find about twenty books in all. Most of them were text book type with very biased views. I checked back at school and no luck there either, but it was nice to see shelves lined with books about war, tanks, school shootings, and how to get ahead in todays society. I guess i wasent very surprised to see this but, it would have been nice i suppose to luck out and find a good book.

Bring on the mud!

Today got off to a wet start on and off for most of the morning but it cleared up and turned into an excellent afternoon for some good old manual labor! I started the morning off with some light gathering of some good rotten logs down around the bog. I only filled up a few duluth packs but every little big counts considering we have to probably get 5-10 times more than we already have. Soon after Derik finished his ropes group we got ready for some diggin'. The hut is located only a few meters from a very nice marshy area where we found some excellent mud













We were out digging for maybe two hours and get i think 7 wheel-barrow loads, sadly thats maybe a quarter or what will eventually be needed!