Photograph taken October 12, 2020 in the Allegheny Highlands, this rock shelter and reflector faces east and is within 100 feet (approximately 30 meters) of the summit of a 1,700 foot (518 meter) high hill. From the Author’s collection.
This article can be used by experimental archaeologists, re-enactors or historical trekkers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and by anyone who is interested in wilderness survival – Author’s note.
You
are overnighting in a rock shelter, or you are “misplaced”, and you need a
survival shelter and a fire, but how do you make sure you sleep warm?
An illustration from “But If You Do Get Lost”, Outdoors USA: 1967, by Kenneth M. Cole, page 91.
With
any survival shelter or windbreak, or if you are an experimental archaeologist,
a re-enactor or a historical trekker, with a lean-to or open-faced tent, you should
always sit between your fire and the back wall of your shelter or windbreak,
and you should always build a reflector, and here is why.
An excerpt from Handbook For Boys, by the Boy Scouts of America, June 1953, page 157
If
you want to be warm, sit between your fire and the back of your shelter or
windbreak, so that the heat from your fire, reflects off the back of the
shelter, and warms up your backside as well as your front. If you put the fire between you and the back
of your shelter, your backside will be cold.
An excerpt from Winter Camping, page 89-90, in which the author recommends building a reflector. The author, Warwick S. Carpenter was born in 1881and died in 1966 and was 32 years old when Winter Camping, was originally published in 1913.
Since
an open fire radiates heat in all directions, you can catch and reflect some of
the heat that would otherwise be wasted and lost, by building a short wall or
reflector, made of rocks or logs, on the opposite side of the fire from you and
your windbreak or shelter. Your
reflector will absorb the heat of the fire and re-radiate it back towards you,
much like a cast iron fireback does in a fireplace. In the same way, the shelter’s ceiling and
walls will also reflect the fires heat back at you.
Additionally,
the reflector will also help to channel the smoke upwards and away from you,
much like a chimney.
An excerpt from Winter Camping, by Warwick S. Carpenter, page 127.
Also,
always remember to keep your fire small and sit or sleep close to it. A big hot bonfire wastes wood and you can’t get
close to it.
An excerpt from Arctic Survival Guide, by Alan
Innes-Taylor, page 62.
Interestingly,
most survival experts and authors during the 20th century recommended
building a reflector in front of your fire.
The one glaring example of a survival expert during this time, who was
anti-reflector, was Alan Innes-Taylor, who was the author of Arctic Survival
Guide, and his greatest complaint about fire reflectors was that they block
half of the space around a fire, a space that Mr. Innes-Taylors thought could
be better used, to sit, to cook, or to dry wet clothes in.
An excerpt from the Boy Scouts of America, Camping: Merit Badge Series, 1963, page 38.
Reflectors
can be made of green logs, either piled or propped up, from a convenient
boulder, from piled up stones or even from dirt and turf. They can even be made by finding a conveniently
placed boulder and setting up your shelter and fire in front of it. But what they should not be made from is the
trunk of a live tree! If you do this and
you are lucky, you will ONLY severely damage the tree, likely causing its
death. If you aren’t lucky, you might
set the tree on fire, and if you are truly unlucky, you might even start a
forest fire.
An excerpt from Games and Recreational Methods, Boy Scout Edition, by Charles F. Smith, page 294. Note how the fire lay is between the tent and
the reflector and that “Adirondack” reflector is made of piled rocks and the
“Nessmuck” reflector is made of cut green logs.
I
hope you are never “misplaced”, and have to overnight in a survival shelter, but
if you are, I hope that you remember these tips and stay safe and warm.
Photograph
taken November 12, 2017 in the Allegheny Highlands, this
rock shelter and reflector faces west to southwest and is within 300 feet (approximately
90 meters) of the summit of a 2,100 foot (640 meter) high hill. From the Author’s collection.
Don’t forget to come
back next week and read “Nocake,
Pinole, Even Rockahominy...It’s Still Parched Corn To Me! ©”, where we will talk about how to make
parched corn, the original Native American and early Euro-American iron ration.
I hope that you continue to enjoy The
Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions
for other related videos, HERE. Don’t
forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on
YouTube. If you have questions, as
always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric
Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds,
so watch for me.
That is all for now, and as always, until next
time, Happy Trails!
Sources
Boy Scouts of America, Camping: Merit Badge
Series, [Boy Scouts of America, New Brunswick, New
Jersey, 1963], page 38
Boy Scouts of America, Handbook For Boys,
[Boy Scouts of America, New York, New York, June 1953], page 157 and 300
Smith, Charles F.; Games and Recreational
Methods, Boy Scout Edition, [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1925], page
294
United States Department of Agriculture, Outdoors
USA: 1967 Yearbook of Agriculture, [United States Government Printing
Office, Washington, DC, 1967], p 87-89
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