3 Days in Arctic Survival Shelter - Solo Bushcraft Camping & Blacksmithing

Luke here with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and welcome to the interior of Alaska. I'm going to be camping in the snow without a tent for the next three days. I'll be building survival shelters, sleeping under animal hides, making bushcraft projects next to the fire and cooking amazing food. Well we've had a really weird winter here in Alaska and it's been cold and hot and cold again but the good news is the snow's not too deep and the swamps are all frozen so I can really get out and explore places I otherwise couldn't access. I got myself pretty wet. Looks like there's a little ditch or creek here so I stopped to get out and walk it before I tried to take the K truck into it and there's a booby trap right here. Look at that. It's just snow floating on water. Then I walked onto it and sunk into mud up to here. I think I'll just go around. I've been driving around for about two and a half hours and I think it's about time to look for a place to camp. There we go. I'll look around for some dead trees. It's going to be pitch black by 4 p.m. today. I have about an hour and a half before sunset and it's really hard to find dead trees in the dark. There's an invasive beetle called the Japanese spruce bark beetle. It's wiping out a lot of the spruce trees in this area. Oh a lot of the trees are sick or dead. In the summertime this place is a massive forest fire hazard so burning up the dead trees in the winter time can actually be a real good thing. Seems like a lot of wood but it's not. If you want to keep warm for 18 hours of darkness plus have a shelter it takes a lot. Sun's setting. I gotta bust out my lights. I use these bicycle lights that have a GoPro mount. I got this on a trip to Kyoto when Tommy was just little. Gotta get a fire going and dry my pants off. It's not a big deal while I'm moving around but once I stop to eat dinner it's gonna get real cold. Always got to make sure to put your flint and steel away. It's so easy to get focused on the fire and then drop it in the snow and lose it. Everything's covered in snow. Everything's covered in ice and snow so I put the firewood around the fire until it starts to catch. Then I put it out and stack it up next to the fire. I don't have enough limbs to cover it all the way to the top but that'll make a good windbreak. All this wood covered in ice and snow. We got to prop it up against the heat reflector and dry it out. Oh just looked at my clock and it's 7 30. So just about five hours to cut down all these trees and build this shelter. Pretty proud of that. That's a lot of wood I cut. Shelter's obviously not as good as it could be but it's good as it's gonna be tonight. I hang up my clothes and let them dry. Gloves are wet. Boots are wet. These logs are frozen and covered in ice. Makes them really cold and it's gonna get me wet so we got to dry them. There you go. I brought some caribou hides to sleep on. I'm getting old. I need, I need padding. Brought along a buffalo hide too as a blanket. Tired. Need to get some dinner made. Tell you what, I really like these heat reflectors. When you build a wall behind your fire, it absorbs the heat of the fire and then reflects it back towards you. But more importantly it acts as a windbreak and keeps the wind from blowing the smoke in your face. It's really nice. All right, for dinner I've got moose fajitas. I prepped up all the meat and seasonings and vegetables and everything in this little package and froze it. Now I'm just gonna put it in a pot of boiling water to heat it back up. Not a bad meal when you don't have time to do fancy stuff. Got a moose fajita with a little bit of guacamole. Oh, I'm hungry. It's about 9 p.m. I haven't eaten since breakfast. Oh, that's good. All right, let's do the dishes. I have a little bit of firewood, but not enough to get me through the rest of the night. I need to go cut some more firewood. I'm gonna sit here and eat some chocolate covered almonds and dry my boots out. Oh, I'm so tired. Oh, it's already 10 p.m. I gotta get to bed here soon. Oh, if I go to bed with wet socks, my feet are gonna be so cold. And if I don't dry my boots out, they'll freeze in the morning and I won't be able to get them on because they'll just be like as solid as a rock. So I've got to go and dry out my boots, dry out my pants, dry out my socks. Look at that steam coming off there. All right, it's time to cuddle up with my buffalo hide and go to sleep. Probably have to stoke the fire every three, four hours, but that's pretty adorable. All right, guys, I'll see you in the morning. Hey, good morning. Oh, this fire's been keeping this place really warm. I keep forgetting how cold it is and then the fire will die down. I'll be like, dang, it's really cold out. Long as the fire's roaring, this place holds the heat pretty well. All right, I think it's time to get up. I'm trying to make some breakfast. Gonna rub some butter on this warm tortilla and put cinnamon sugar on it. That's good. If you've ever had cinnamon toast or a sopa pita, it kind of tastes like that. Got some steel cut Irish oatmeal here. This is the good stuff. A little butter, brown sugar, and raisins. It's about 9 30 in the morning and you can start to see a little bit of light out. Sun's going to rise in about 45 minutes. Oh, well, that was good. I've got to do the dishes now. It's about 10 o'clock and looks like the sun's up. Need to get to work here. This statue only does a marginal job of keeping the wind out. But once you get a little bit of snow on top of it, then it's absolutely airtight. The trick is that you've got to make it thick enough and far enough away from the fire that when you've got a nice big roaring fire in here, you don't have drips of water from melting snow. Hopefully we got it right. Well, that's not too shabby. That's a proper wall. I think the next thing I want to do is improve my bed. It was a little bit narrow last night. I kept trying to roll off. I wouldn't mind having that footrest a bit bigger too. Dry out this log before I put it in my bed. I piled up a bunch of logs over there as a bit of a windbreak to keep cold air from going underneath my bed. Now they got the shelter built. I don't think it's really necessary. So I'm going to use that for my firewood tonight. Shelter's feeling nice and tidy. The bed's feeling better. I got more of a platform. Got some firewood drying. I think it's time to eat some food. A friend of mine gave me these hot dogs. I think they're made out of caribou. Excited to try them out. Oh, smell good. That's a good hot dog. I think I worked up a two hot dog appetite. But I want to do a little project. I want to build a cooking griddle. This is a 22 gauge weldable steel. It's not very even. It's an ugly freehand oval right there. I got this little stump anvil right here. You don't need anything fancy like this. A rock will do. Just put a little lip on the edge of it. Knocked off all the sharp bits. Now it's really stiff and rigid and your food won't spill off the edge. Got a little bit of steel rod here. Heat that up in the fire. That's a little griddle. It's kind of ugly shaped, but that's what happens when you do it freehand. But now we got to season it. Got a little peanut oil and get the handles too. Let that bake. We'll do a couple layers. Seasoned frying pan. It's ready for cooking. Well, it's about 6 30. I think it's time for dinner. So for dinner, I got something special. Got king crab legs. Last winter, I went up to Nome with my son Nathan and we caught king crab through the ice. I've got this little jar with garlic and butter in it. Just kind of loosen the lid. Sit that right by the fire. Look at the size of that crab leg. That is so warm and delicious. When you cook the crabs over the fire too, it makes their shells brittle. Makes a lot easier to shell them. You just use your hands. You got to eat quick. Things cool off really quick around here. Look at that. That's just from one knuckle. Barely fits in the jar. Oh, that's messy, but good. Got a full belly and a big fire. Gonna listen to an audio book. Just kind of relax for an hour or so before bedtime. Oh, it's getting late. I should hop into bed. Definitely feel like this shelter is a lot warmer than yesterday. The air is just not moving as much. I got the heat reflecting off this sidewall and the whole thing is just a better wind block. It's nice having a little bit more of a platform to stand on. Got more room to dry my boots. Forgot to dry my socks out before going to bed, but with this nice little step right here, I can just stick my feet out. They're all nice and toasty. I'm going to put the camera down. I'll see you guys in a little bit. I had to stoke the fire a couple times, but stayed warm. But my back is sore. Oh, oh, my back. I feel like I was run over by a truck, but I'm warm. Well, it's about 7.30. I think it's time to go test out that griddle and make some breakfast. Okay, corned beef hash. Oh, it's so frozen. Yeah, it's pretty nonstick. Slid right off. Corned beef and hash egg sandwich. Oh, that is so good. Tell you what, that little skillet worked really well. Pretty easy to make too. Oh, that was delicious. I wouldn't mind another one of those. Tell you, that was a good meal. I'm definitely going to have to do that one again. But I think it's time to get packed up. I'm going to try to get home by 12 and I've got a long way to drive to get there. So I think I better not wait for the sun to come up. I'll tell you what, I liked my little griddle. Worked really well. All right. This is a really nice shelter. I'm curious to see how it performs in bad weather though. Maybe I can come back during a snowstorm and see how this shelter does. All right. Let's see if the car starts. When it gets really cold, my K truck freezes up and won't start. But it's a bit of a ways home. So hopefully it'll start up on me. Ah, sure is nice when things work. Yeah, you definitely want to make sure that car's working before you put your fire out. Got to work out my backing up. If you liked that video, make sure to check out the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel where we have hundreds of videos just like this. And if you want to see our newest adventures, make sure to click subscribe so you'll get notifications.