trapline shelters

[musher]

Besides your trucks, what do you people use as a shelter on your line. Be it to eat, sleep, warm up, or dry off a little.

Last year I had a a frame of 2x4's wrapped with tyvec house sheathing. The white plastic was nice and bright in the interior and the wood stove could keep it at 50-60 degrees F. even though it was minus 20 outside.

[bobwendt]

boy could I tell some stories here. about everything from abandoned hogons, caves, deserted houses, tents at minus 38 degrees ( bad memory there folks) to the back of the truck . A real nice heated motel room with old fashioned DEEP bathtub and plenty hot water and stove, frig, microwave , phone and cable tv. the trouble with the last type is you think you died and are in heaven, and then the phone rings and realize you just lucked out this trip. But I`ve done it all from a bag up against a cliff out of the wind to the deal in heaven.

[Dusty]

I have a "loose cabin" - tight enough to keep the bears out, wrapped in tarps and lined with Tyvec for insulation. It took 2 of us 2 days to build, and cost a bit over $300. I can get it way hotter than I can sleep with my barrel stove, regardless of the outside temp (down to -55 or so, at least). It's around 15' square (big enough for 3 snogos, sleds, etc in the summer), so it's a bit like a mansion as far as trapline cabine go.

I spent a couple winters in a wall tent. Not too bad, but I had a small stove. When the stove went out, inside air temp went from +50 to -50 in about 2 seconds. I got really good at building fires from my sleeping bag.

[bobwendt]

I can only imagine -55. at -38 I mastered the pee in a cup inside the sleeping bag technique. set it out for a few minutes, tap out the cube to be heaved in the morning, and the cup is ready for the next batch of recycled coffee.

[coyote]

have any pics, Dusty & Musher?

sorry, Bob...don't want no pics of your pee-cicle ;D

[Dusty]

Bob - it's really not that bad when you're dealing with it day after day - it's just something that you learn to cope with. I grew up in OK, and I'll take an AK winter over an OK summer any day.

[Dusty]

Can't find any pics of the outside, but here's the important part

[FWS]

But it's a dry cold, huh Dusty. ;D

The climate in my preffered areas is pretty mild, since I usually run traps in shorts, a t shirt and running shoes. So at most I used a tentcamp on extended lines.

But in the near future it'll be my ultra bad ass super deluxe cargo trailer with a partitioned off front with a bunk, stove/oven, frig., etc.

[trappnman]

them little colored doohickeys...thems clothes pins.....don't you know socks dry quicker when hung full length? LOL

[Dusty]

Dude - over that stove, socks dry plenty quick enough! Them little doohickeys are mainly for the things that are too stiff to hang over the clotheslines when they come off.

FWS: yea, it's a dry cold. Except when you're nuts-deep in overflow with 300 pounds of stuck snogo encased in 8000 pounds of slush-turning-to-ice and you just dropped your comealong and your last pair of gloves is frozen to the muffler where they were supposed to be drying. Then it's pretty fukin wet!

[dj88ryr]

Dusty, you load wood enough for winter before the season? How many camps do you run?

[dj88ryr]

Here is a pic that Musher sent to me to post for you guys.

[timwilcox]

How does that barrel stove handle the heat ? I thought about building a double barrel stove for my shed. But I thought that the barrels would not handle the extreme heat to well.

[mmwb (Andrew Parker)]

"How does that barrel stove handle the heat ?"

We had a barrel stove in our basement when I was a kid. I remember the thing being cherry red a few times with some mlld warping. In retrospect, I don't know why we got it that hot! Keep a good layer of ash in it to insulate the bottom from the coals. We used ours for a couple of years with no problems, before we sold the place.

[musher]

Thank you, Dj.

It isn't much to look at but it sure is pretty when you're wet and cold!

The size is only about 8 x9. Most of that is wood stove. The rest is a few chairs and a fold down table. I also keep some dry wood in there. In a short while you can go from cold to "take off your coat" time.

8 bolts keep it together. All a fellow has to do is; remove the tin roof, unscrew, and move. It takes a couple of hours to set up.

There are several good stoves on the market. Mine is a homemade one. It looks like heck, broken hinge and all. I keep it that way so no one wants to steal it!

[Dusty]

That's base camp. With the airplane one is plenty. I trap a few-hundred thousand acre old burn - there are standing dead trees everywhere. Wood has only been a problem once - when the overflow was deep enough I couldn't get across my camp lake. Normally, I can get a week's wood in 30 min or so.

That stove cost me almost $7 - I don't care how it handles the heat! It's pretty dang good actually, and I can build another one in about 30 min (no exaggeration) for - with inflation - probably $8. It'll run you out of that cabin at -50, and it'll burn all night on fire-killed spruce tops. And it's only tried to kill me a couple times. It's great (as far as $7 stoves that fit nicely in an airplane go)!!

[musher]

That's 7 bucks U.S., Dusty. That's many Canadian pesos!

My stove was salveged from a guy throwing it out.

A few questions: Do you have legs on it or does it sit on something? How many gallons is the barrel? Torch cut? Welded hinges or nut and bolt? Star cut for the stove pipe or circle cut out? Why is the pipe topside as opposed to top?

Thanks.

[Dusty]

Yea, you could probably just get fuel oil delivered for that 7USD if you converted it to Canukmoney ;D

It sits on cement blocks. The next version will have metal legs.

It's a 55gal barrel.

The entire thing was made with a sawz-all (previous editions have been made with a metal blade in a skill saw, and a jig saw) and a drill. All the hardware is held on with self-tapping screws (and trap wire). The hinges are purchased - everything else is barrel metal and self-tapping screws (and the aforementioned trapping wire).

The hole is a star-slit-thingy hammered in forming a rough circle. That seals better - way better - than cutting a circle.

The pipe is on the side to maximize cooking area. Make very sure the top of the door is well below the bottom of the hole for the pipe. Mine has a strip of barrel metal screwed back into the top of the door to rectify that original oversight. You could smoke fish in the cabin with the original setup.

[musher]

Any sliding air intake to control the fire? I see the flue damper to slow the fire down but, besides leaving the door open, how do you get it to burn hotter?

[Maineman]

I couldn't imagine trying to trap in -30 degree weather…And to think we complain about the rain here in the east...LOL…My thoughts would be “how in the heck could you skin at the end of the day” with everything frozen solid…(I know, thaw it out, but my god...)

My hats off to anyone who traps in weather even remotely close to this…

Dave Z