Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: The Classic Guide to Building Wilderness Shelters. D.C. Beard

This excellent hands-on guide by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America contains a wealth of practical instruction and advice on how to build everything from a bark teepee and a tree-top house to a log cabin and a sod house. No professional architects are needed here; and knowing how to use an axe is more important than possessing carpentry skills. More than 300 of the author's own illustrations and a clear, easy-to-follow text enable campers to create such lodgings as half-cave shelters, beaver mat huts, birch bark shacks, over-water camps, a Navajo hogan, and a pole house. Additional chapters provide information on how to use an axe, split and notch logs, make a fireplace, and even build appropriate gateways to log houses, game preserves, ranches, and other open areas. An invaluable book for scouts, campers, hikers, and hunters of all ages, this guide and its fascinating collection of outdoor lore "still has intrinsic value," said Whole Earth Magazine, and will be of keen interest to any modern homesteader.

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Originally published in 1914, this handbook is still as essential for the modern builder as it was for the homesteader of the last century. This guide contains step-by-step instructions for building "worry-free" shelters, including special settings such as a sod house, a tree house, an "over-water" camp, a bog ken, and much more. The passionate builder will find illustrated instructions for comforts such as hearths and chimneys, notched log ladders, and even how to rig the front door with a secret lock.