Let’s say I was to be dropped into the middle of a temperate forest with a swiss army knife, plenty of clothes, plenty of food, and nothing else. For argument’s sake, let’s say I was dropped in at the end of spring, giving me two seasons or so until having permanent shelter becomes a pressing concern. What kind of building could I, a reasonably athletic person with a pocket knife, realistically expect to build?
If you could fashion a stone axe, you could probably build a log cabin. If you’re an a stony area you could find flat stones, or with a lot of work using stone tools to shape them, and use them as building materials.
Start with a simple lean-to. That can be built with just a pocket knife as a tool. From there, you really need to fabricate some other equipment. A stone axe, as mentioned, would be a big help. Failing that, you could go for adobe if you have clay deposits, or a wattle and mud construction if you don’t have the temps needed for brick. Thatch the roof and call it good. The alternative if you can find or fake a shoveling implement is to build a soddy. Cut into the side of a hill, it offers protection from the wind, stabilized tempertures, and you don’t have to build as many walls. My grandfather built on in Kansas back around the turn of the century on the old homestead. Of course, he had a few more tools than the OP specifies.
I was going to mention adobe, but I thought a temperate forest would be too wet to make it. I had wattle and mud in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t bring it forward. Thanks for jogging my memory.
It really depends on what materials you have to work with. And proper planning. If it’s a pine forest, there should be plenty of dead fall to make a lean-to. Start with something like that, for immediate shelter, and work on additions as you can.
Can you make fire? Rocks can also be a great benefit. I would consider some sort of rock wall where you could build a big ass fire on the outside, heating up the rock wall.
Even with a lot of dead fall, fuel for heat/cooking is going to be a concern, as you use it up, it’s going to get farther and farther away. And it will be harder when the snow flies.
Well, if you know the method, dry stone is one of the most enduring construction methods in history. (A dry stone shelter on Mt. Fuji is reputed to be 6000 years old.) It is a matter of having the skill, and the time to find the stone, and transport it. With a lean to for initial protection, you can start with a stone fireplace, and work inward on the slope from there. Eventually, you should have a fairly sturdy stone hut.
Tris
The “gold standard” of survival shelters is a debris hut/shelter.
Usually they’re built small (sleeping bag sized) but there are ways to make much larger and more elaborate ones.
CMC fnord!
Ditch that SAK for a heavy bladed full tanged knife and you can baton your way through small trees!
'Course this is much easier (with a little whittling it can become a 21" frame saw)!
Can you please provide a cite for this? I am not aware of such dry stone shelters from the Jomon period.
The classic that many folks’ stuff is based on
Shelters Shacks and Shanties
Hmmm. Looking it up is gonna be harder than I first thought. So, let’s consider it refuted for now, since I haven’t got the references anywhere close to handy. If I find them in the next week or so, while I am still vaguely sure you might be keeping an eye out, I will post a reference.
My memory of the issue came from a time when I read some collections of Haiku, and one of the footnotes describes the stone hut that was the subject/setting of one of the poems. But all the details are just way to vague for formal cites, and I simply accepted the report at face value anyway. I will probably be a week or so beating the bushes to reconstruct the reference.
Tris
Ray Mears has recommended a machete on his TV programmes.
Ray Mears would have a fully equipped Starbucks up and running within 20 minutes of landing in the jungle armed only with his machete.
Okay.
I was . . . well, lied to.
No four thousand year old structures at all in Japan.
Some dry stone walls in Wales, and some monuments in Ireland, and Malta believed to be that old or older, but the huts on Mt. Fuji story is just hyperbole, which I was entirely gullible to. Sorry.
Tris