The wickiup is a very useful shelter and has a lot of uses in primitive living as well as some survival situations. I admit that it is very unlikely that you will want to build a structure like this in a short term survival situation. But a regular wickiup can be completed in a day and is very much like an indian teepee. The benefit of this structure over other shelters is that it is one of the few shelters that you can have a fireplace in without risk of smoke inhalation. The cedar bough thatched roof on this particular wickiup is wonderful at shedding water and acts very much like modern goretex. It sheds the water quite well while allowing the smoke to vent through the top quite well. Though this shelter was never meant to be water tight like a debris hut, it still has many uses. The Hybrid wickiup in the slideshow below is actually a concept I designed to bring the best of both worlds together. I crossed the debris shelter and the wickiup to combine a water tight sleeping area with a warm dry work area. This particular structure will sleep 8 people comfortably and is quite warm even in the coldest conditions! The shelter has at least 2 feet of debris on all sides of it and the debris is shored up with retaining walls. In the middle of the structure is a custom concrete fireplace that I designed that is somewhat similiar to a dakota fire pit! There is a 4 inch stove pipe vent that runs to the outside and into the bottom of the fireplace to feed air into the fire! This structure took a substantial amount of time to build and shouldn’t be considered as a viable survival shelter unless you plan to be somewhere for quite sometime!
Things to remember about wickiups
-Wickiups are not intended to be completely dry, but are warm and shed water well!
-Face your door towards the south east
-When making the walls of the wickiup create a minimum of 6-12 inches of depth so that you have enough room to jam cedar boughs deep into the walls without the use of cordage
-When constructing the roof start at bottom by jamming cedar boughs in at different angles in order to create a random weave pattern that will hold up in weather. Make the bottom slightly thicker than the top. Taper as you go! You should barely be able to see any daylight, if any, after the roof is thatched!
-No modern materials are required, but cordage makes things much easier
-Structure should only be big enough for what it is intended. If just one person is sleeping in it then scale the size back tremendously
-Don’t dig fireplace to deep otherwise heat will radiate up instead of out
-Build debris bed where you plan to sleep
-Gather the majority of your materials first and then begin construction, and gather way more than you think you will need because it always takes more than expected!
-This is one of the many shelter we construct in our advanced shelters class. Come check us out for more info!
If you have an interest in learning these skills then we suggest you take our Survival Standard, Advanced Survival Standard, or Primitive Shelter courses
Click Link Below to view slide show demonstration of wickiup construction phases!
-Ultimate Hybrid Wickiup Construction
Frame work for Ultimate Wickiup
Finished Product- Home Sweet Home!
