Constructing a Quick and Easy Teepee

This is another great how-to from my online buddy, Bob. He is a genuinely self-sufficient soul, living off the grid somewhere on the North American continent.

This time around, Bob breaks down the art and science of building a quick-and-easy teepee (tipi).

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A few days before Christmas I had a sudden hankering for a Teepee. Don’t ask me why. It was just a sudden and strong urge. I had to have one!

It’s been years since I’ve had much to do with teepees. During the summer of ‘78 I spent two weeks high in the Colorado Rockies living in a teepee, and ever since then I’ve had a soft spot for ‘em.

Now the trouble with teepees is they are expensive to buy, and take a lot of sewing to make. Way to much work for this lazy bum. But still, I needed a teepee bad. What to do?

Then it popped into my mind how some folk make tents from cheap tarps and glue ‘em together with contact cement! What a brilliant idea! Could I do something like that with a teepee?

So, the day before Christmas I stopped on the way home from work at Harbor freight to buy a tarp and 100 feet of cheap cord. Another stop at a hardware store for a can of contact cement and I was all set.

I’d already downloaded more traditional teepee fixin’ directions and a diagram from this site.

This is to be a ten foot teepee. Big enough to sleep two adults or a pile of kids. You need a tarp about ten feet wide by twenty feet long to make a teepee this big.

You could get material by the yard and sew it all together, but by buying one big tarp to start with we save most of the work involved in making a teepee!

Teepee fixin’s —

Christmas day I went out to layout my teepee.

First, lay it out and hammer big nails in the corners to hold it in place. The ground was frozen hard and ice covered so ordinary tent stakes were out of the question.

Then, find the middle of the tarp, bang a nail in and tie a cord to it.

With the cord and a magic marker, draw a semicircle on the tarp.

In the corners, draw smoke flaps. Back at the top center, mark two triangles.

Cut it all out, and because it was so cold out I dragged it all inside to glue-up.

I pushed the table back and got to gluing the smoke flaps on, a cord in the bottom hem, and a cord at the top center.

I also cut about a dozen 12″ lenths of cord for stake loops.

Finished!

The next day was the family gathering at the in-laws’ place. Eleven of my nieces and nephews showed up. None had ever seen a teepee, some didn’t know what one was. I commandeered four or five of ‘em and went to the forest to cut poles. I sawed down 12 green grand fir saplings and had the kids drag ‘em up to behind the house.

Then I passed out hatchets, machetes, and other implements of mass destruction and we all set about trimming the branches, piling the brush for a floor, and cutting poles to length.

Up went the poles. The teepee was tied onto one pole and raised up over the frame. We cut slits in the hem for the stake loops, and tied the loops in place. Again, we had to use log spikes for stakes because of the frozen ground. Somewhat surprisingly, nobody lost a finger.

Before long the teepee was up, darkness fell, and we had a fire inside with about eight kids crammed in with me toasting marshmallows on sticks.

I barely made it out alive….

Imagine that many kids stuffed into a small teepee. Half are industriously poking at the fire making it smoke and spark, the rest are waving flaming marshmallows around. I thought I’d get nailed in the head by a flaming marshmallow for sure!

Well, the kids had fun and it kept them out of the house. The adults looked through the windows at the brightly glowing teepee, but didn’t venture forth into the night.

I took the teepee home with me that night, and set it up in the woods at my place the next weekend. It’s been up ever since.

The smoke flaps fell off after a week or two. These flaps are held up by their own poles and staked out. They take allot of stress. If you make one have a care with gluing the smoke flaps. I’d kinda rushed the whole thing and I reckon they might hold up if done right.

The lack of smoke flaps doesn’t seem to make any difference though. Surprisingly, despite several fires inside the tarp shows no burn holes or signs of melting. I’ll leave it up all winter long and see how it fares.

My next project is to build some camp beds of poles, rope or brush to outfit the teepee and wrangle up some of my nephews for a campout.

Now I know this tarp teepee will not last like a canvas one will. I did use a heavy duty tarp and am surprised at how well it is holding up. I reckon it’s fine for camping with the kids, or to set up in the yard for the kids to play in. It’s also nice to know how to make one should an earthquake demolish your home and you need a fast shelter…

All-in-all a fun project.

The poles —

The fire was lit before the teepee was even up! The poles are set up smaller than you think the teepee will be.

Lay the last pole on the cover and tie it on.

Raise the last pole into place and wrap the cover around the poles. Tie the ends together.

From the inside, move the poles out to stretch the cover tight.

This picture was taken at night with a flash. Outside a freezing rain is falling, but it’s nice and cozy inside.

The teepee glowing in the dark of night —

I was worried about the fire damaging the tarp but so far the thing has held up perfectly, except for the loss of the smoke flaps.

This is a shot taken with a flash at night, lying flat on my back looking up. No damage at all to the teepee cover.

It does show how much smoke you get up top. This can be a good thing though. In the spring the smoke keeps the black flies away, in the summer it keeps the mosquitoes away, and you can hang meat up to smoke.

Not sure I’d carry one about in my truck for emergency use though. I think a smaller tarp tent that I could carry in a pack on my back might make more sense. You know, if ya gotta ditch the truck and walk home.

I don’t think if my truck got stuck or broke down back up in the hills that I’d shelter in place for more than one night before I simply grabbed my GHB and started walking. So I prefer to carry the stuff needed to walk home, not homestead on the spot.

There are quite a variety of tents you can make from tarps and contact cement. I’m thinking about experimenting with a “miners” or pyramid type tent. Much easier to cut one pole than a dozen. I’m thinking a small pyramid type tent that you could open up one whole side and set up a fire in front of for heat and cooking.

Or maybe one of Rustums “convertible A” tents, which were intended as lightweight tents that could take advantage of a fire.