A Week in the Woods: Day One

So there I was, standing in a forest clearing with my backpack, my wits, and a generous 10 hours of sunlight in which to build my shelter. It was August 16, 2017, and my fellow researchers had taken me by truck a ways up the dirt path of the Old Alaska Highway, to a place where a stream crossed the track. There, I said my goodbyes and continued on foot. A short hike later, I saw a clearing just off the path, a sort of depression that looked like it might once have been a pond. Reaching the other side of the depression, I crested a small hill and came upon another clearing, about twice as long as it was wide, and well out of sight of the Old Alaska Highway. This seemed to be as good a site as any to set up my camp; I put down my backpack and began to look around.

I discovered that my immediate surroundings weren't at all unpleasant. Dense patches of young spruce trees sheltered my clearing to the east and west, and several formations of fallen logs provided a barrier on the north. To the south, back towards the path, there were a few low hills; I designated one of these hills, about twenty meters away from the clearing, as my kitchen area and I left the bear canister containing all my food there so that I might be undisturbed even if a bear did direct its interest towards my edibles.

The next order of business was to start building my shelter. I had done some light research on boreal survival and the main thing that I picked up about shelters was that it was important not only to have a roof, but also a bed to elevate myself so that I would not lose huge amounts of body heat to the cold ground at night. Fortunately, dead wood is easy to find in the Yukon, and I soon had myself a rough rectangle of logs about eight feet long, four feet wide, and six inches high. I covered this surface with spruce branches for padding, and it was surprisingly springy and comfortable. I decided that the easiest shelter to make in this situation was a sort of A-frame, and I found a fallen poplar sapling that was about twenty feet long that would make a perfect main beam. With the help of the two trees at the foot of my bed and a few forked branches, I soon made my vision a reality.

Getting to this point took more time than I thought it would; I wasn't in a hurry, but I also began to appreciate the 'infinite labor' Robinson Crusoe cites whenever he talks about the things he built with minimal tools. I placed several branches to make the frame of the roof, put my garbage bag waterproofing layer on, and then added several more branches overtop the plastic before tying it all together and calling it a day. The shelter wasn't quite finished, but it kept the wind out and it didn't look like there was any more serious weather on the way.

I hung my battery-powered lantern just inside the entrance of my shelter, rolled out my sleeping bag on top of the spruce mattress, and laid down to read a bit and then sleep. I had all my sweaters and jackets on in the sleeping bag and my winter hat pulled over my ears, and I was just about able to stay warm.