Winter Survival Camping with 4 yr old in Alaska - Primitive Survival Shelter

Hey guys, see that little pair of eyeballs sticking out from underneath those reindeer pelts? That's my four-year-old son Nathan and today we're in the Alaskan bush in the dead of winter and we're doing another extreme survival camping video. We're gonna see if we can survive out here in the winter with no tent, no heaters, no sleeping bags. You ready Nathan? Yeah you are. But first we've got to get off the beaten path and to do that is going to take a lot of brute strength and leg work. Well it's 10 30 in the morning and we just saw the sunrise. We're going to need every ounce of sunlight we can to get our shelter built and get enough firewood for the night. It's going to be cold, real cold. Just saw some wolf tracks and wolf scat. Hopefully that won't be an issue but if it is we're prepared. Alright I think this is where we're going to make our campsite right here. Let's get cracking. We need to build a shelter and a fire quickly. When you're moving around and snowshoeing and swinging an axe you build up a sweat and that is not good. You cannot get sweaty so you're stripping off layers when you're too hot, putting layers on when you're too cold and only for a few minutes the whole day will you be just right. You gotta stay hydrated and that means keeping liquid water handy. All this water around me is no good unless it's wet so keep a bottle of water inside your snow pants so it stays warm. I take these and I wrap you up a little bit. One reindeer bag and then another one. There you go Nate you feeling warmer? Good. It's cold out. Well I'm almost done with my shelter but it looks like my camping buddy's taking a little nap. This is a blast match. It's basically ferrous rod steel. I'm having a little trouble starting my fire so I'm going to go old school. Building a fire in the cold is a lot like building a fire in the rain. The wood is so cold and caked with ice that you need to defrost it before it'll light. So you kind of need to pile it up high and fan it frequently. Nathan woke up and we need to get this boy some food. Oh that looks good. Get you off the ground. Does that feel better? Your hands feel better Nathan? Moths? Yep there's moths but only in the summer. Here you go buddy. I need at least one luxury for camping trip. Let's do this. Campfire easy Mac. Are you doing good? I did as good as mom? Yeah. Yeah thank you. You enjoying your mac and cheese? Yeah. All right gotta get our beds made and tonight we're gonna be sleeping on reindeer hides. Yeah I'm gonna throw it over here. Look what we got for dessert. Chocolates. For those of you out there with young daughters you will recognize these pillows as Sven the reindeer from the cartoon Frozen which I thought would be really appropriate since we're sleeping on reindeer hides in the middle of winter. We got one sleeping bag and that's for Nathan. Taking a four-year-old out negative temperature is no joke. So I have a negative 30 mummy bag here. This is a very expensive bag. We should be able to keep you warm in this Nate. Oh look at my gloves. What are those? Those are my gloves. I took them off and they got frozen. Anyone who's done a lot of winter camping has also burned up a lot of gloves and boots and socks. So we're just gonna hang these right here and hopefully they will not catch fire. These are really really frozen aren't they? You're hot? Well that's good. It's not loaded but let's be really careful okay. Like that and then you like that and that puts a bullet in it. It's only six o'clock so we got a little time here just to sit by the fire and kind of dry off and then we're gonna go to sleep and hopefully we'll stay warm. All right we got all of our firewood stacked up ready for tonight and it's a little bit of a trick. You want to stack your wood around the fire so that it dries out and thaws out before it's time to put it on the fire. But of course you don't want it too close because if your woodpile catches fire you could wake up to a giant bonfire in your face. Well the fire and the shelter are doing a great job. Nice and warm in front a little chilly on the back but not bad. It'll probably get down to the negative numbers tonight and I think we'll be just fine as long as we can keep this fire stoked. You don't want to sleep in your sleeping bag? Yeah I'll just hide. You want to just sleep under the caribou hide? All right. It's crazy. It's about 10 p.m and Nathan is snoring away. Look at him. He's just snug as a bug in a rug between two caribou hide. I'm doing pretty good. I'm staying warm. My back's a little cold but it is not a big deal. But mostly I'm just on the lumpiest piece of ground. There's this weird bump and it's kind of hard to find a good comfortable position. Well it's 1 30 in the morning and I've discovered we have a little bit of a fuel problem. But you can see the two logs I was using as a heat reflector to fire cut through them and I folded them in on each other. Those are pretty chunky logs so those should last a while. But other than that I've got two big logs and half a dozen small logs. That's it. All of that wood I cut is gone. I mean that was like four or five spruce trees worth. Good morning. It's a little before 7 a.m and I still have some fire here. So hopefully we can make the fuel last a little bit longer. Cook some breakfast. Maybe just maybe last us to sun up. Around two hours ago Nathan woke up and asked me to put him in the sleeping bag. But other than that he slept underneath the reindeer hide the whole night. I'm just going to kind of quietly make some breakfast and so when he wakes up here in an hour or so I'll have something warm to eat. Yeah there you go. The eggs froze solid. That's cold weather camping for you. We got the eggs thawing out down there so hopefully I'll have eggs here soon. Well I finished breakfast and Nathan didn't stir at all and he's sleeping in and that's great. But while I still have some fuel I think I might start cooking lunch. I'm going to make some beef stew. Just have that ready. I brought some beef stock with me. You can see it's partially frozen which is pretty impressive considering how much salt's in there. All right time to add the seasonings. Got a little garlic there. Let's see. Got some frozen basil. Got some bay leaves. Some oregano. Oh yeah that looks and smells perfect. Well it's nine o'clock and I've got two surprises. One Nathan's still asleep and two I still have some wood left over. We're gonna make it to sunrise. But uh we're gonna let Nathan sleep just a little bit more here then I'm gonna wake him up. But I tell you what I really enjoy sleeping on those reindeer hides. They are an amazing insulator. In my opinion the worst part of winter camping is getting out of a warm sleeping bag and putting on cold boots and clothes. So just laid his boots and hung up his jackets right there by the fire. So hopefully it'll be toasty warm when he gets up. Nathan. Nathan. Nathan buddy. Wake up. You slept in a lot. Nathan do you want some hot chocolate and breakfast? Here's some bacon. Bacon. I know they don't teach kids cursive in school anymore but gosh darn it my kids are learning. He's practicing his letters over there. Well we're packing up and this trip is coming to a close. Hopefully you guys enjoyed watching this video as much as we enjoyed filming it. If you guys like this sort of thing don't forget to click subscribe. We put out new videos every Saturday morning and we have tons of camping and survival videos. Thanks for watching and don't forget to click. If you like this video don't forget to check out the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel where we have hundreds of videos just like this. And don't forget to click subscribe so you can see other great videos every Saturday morning. 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