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Shelter building was one of the first things I started to practice as I became interested in bushcraft and survival. On this page I will share some of the shelters I have built and talk about different types of shelters and their uses.

This frame is pretty massive; wishing I would have taken a photo inside it to show comparison. This lean to shelter building with the kids at my environmental educator job. Nothing makes a kid prouder than constructing something from raw materials, it is such a fulfilling thing to work on it with them.
I think the best thing about survival is that with patience and perseverance anyone can do it. You don’t have to be a straight A student or an all star athlete. If we could introduce children to more passions outdoors at a young age, it could give them a hobby that last a lifetime.

Building a Quinzhee

When life gives you snow, build a Quinzhee! I cheated a little bit on this construction by taking a trashcan and throwing snow over it, then packing it down. In a survival situation a great way to construct a snow fort shelter is to begin by packing snow over piled clothing or a backpack. You can then go in the entryway and start digging out the area formed by the items you packed snow over.

Wiki-Ups

Frame
Completed

This simple and easy to construct wickiup was made by leaning tall branches together and then adding debris to the frame. I still needed to add a bit more debris it to waterproof it. A wickiup is a great shelter to construct if you are in a time crunch.If you want to truly waterproof it I recommend adding 2 to 3 feet of debris on top. This makes it more like a debris hut.

Ash Trees for Shelter

Unfortunately we have a lot of dead ash trees lying around here in Michigan. Makes for fast and easy shelter building, but is a reminder of the devastation that almost totally decimated our ash tree population.
Since it arrived to Michigan in 2002, the emerald ash borer beetle (Agrilus planipennis) has wiped out over 30 million trees in Southeast Michigan alone. The problem with moving firewood long distances is that many don’t understand it could potentially destroy an entire ecosystem. Parasitic insects and other invertebrates that work well in some environments, can destroy others. The ash trees here had no immunity to this species of beetle, so it devastated their population.

Lean-To Shelters

Another simple Shelter to build is the well known lean to. They generally require less time to construct and have a steep roof that helps in providing a waterproof fortress. I recommend finding sturdy polls to create the foundation.

Notice how I started out with the frame, added leaves and other debris, and then finished this shelter by piling on loads of dry grass as I found out in an open field.

Delilah had a fun time building shelter with me!

Bed Shelters

Added a raised bed to my little lean-to shelter. Using dead tree bark to cover the foundation made it about a 1000x more comfortable. Topped it off with some fresh forest grass and it was pretty dang comfy. I used cedar wood underneath to help repel the skeeters.

Platform Shelter

This platform Shelter did not work out as well as I had intended it to. The sticks that are used for the foundation were not strong enough at some parts and the flat roof made it very leaky during heavy rains.It was constructed from the dead ash trees and interwoven with grape vines.

More Shelter photos

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