Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Has anyone ever slept like an Indian?

This is kind of a strange topic, but the thread on staying warm while sleeping got me to thinking about how the Native Americans and mountain men used to survive.

Has anyone ever slept in an animal skin like bear or buffalo? I would think they would be great since the skin should breathe while there is obviously plenty of insulation in the hair. I guess God knows what He's doing!

Along that line, I've been pondering the idea of making a bed out of leaves, pine needles, etc...instead of using an air mattress. A thin foam pad would probably still be a good idea.

Those ideas are obviously not new and carrying a buffalo skin wouldn't exactly be "fast and light"! Just wondering if anyone had ever spent a cold night out like people used to.

They travelled light at times (such as war parties) because they made use of natural materials and natural shelters where they stopped rather than always carry a full tent, etc.

Try it! You might like it, but try it close to home or vehicle your first time, in case it gets so miserable you want to bail out.

If you search the archives there are several lengthy discussions on this topic. I am one of several here who deliberately hunt at times with a light, non-bulky backpack and bivy for a night or a few without sleeping bag or tent. We usually cheat a bit by taking along tear-open chemical hand warmers and stashing them several places inside our clothes to sleep warm.

A Cree friend of mine in Northern Saskatchewan is a throwback to an earlier era. He routinely sleeps out in -40 without tent or sleeping bag, though he says a fresh caribou hide is wonderful for sleeping. He is skilled at making amazingly warm shelters and beds of spruce boughs, facing his fire. He usually carries a small tarp and says that improves the comfort, though he does fine without it. FWIW that is always in deep dry cold, and he hates rain and temps that fluctuate above freezing.

Duff, leaves and pine needles, moss, red rot wood etc. all have insulating properties. They make a huge difference in warmth if you place them under you to insulate your body from cold or frozen ground. Deer and elk choose red rot portions of stumps or logs to lie on. These provide insulation but very little softness comfort, and are usually more lumpy than bare ground.

Dead cattail rushes and reeds, or dead grass in large amounts can make both a warm and a very soft and comfortable bed.

An old friend back in his younger days would winter camp and sleep as he said, "Like the hogs sleep." He'd rake up a big pile of pine straw and crawl under it. He claimed he slept warm and fine.

I used to siwash all the time when I was growing up. You create a sort of brush hut under the right spruce tree and then make a mattress from green spruce boughs from another tree.

Sincerely,

Thomas

I messed around with things like that as a kid. We did a few shelters in the scouts. I may have to give it another go!

Tried a "fire bed" at one time...basically dig out a shallow scrap about 7' x2', and built a long fire in it. We the stacked up the soil along one side so it drieds out as the fire burnt down.

Once it bad been burning a couple of hours, we removed any large bits of burning wood, tamped out the embers and pulled the previously excavated (now warm and dry) soil into the "trench" covering the embers..We then covered this with a good layer of spruce or other boughs and any other natural insulation you would find, effectively making a hot bed...

You need to make sure the spruce and leaf litter "bed" is alot wider than the original trench as you will probably want to sleep to one side of it initially, moving more over it as the heat in the ground dies down.

When we tried it, it was too hot to be comfortable, but that was in relatively mild british Weather...In seriously cold winter weather it could very well be a life saver..

I referred here in another recent post to spending the night out as an unpleasant surprise while chukar hunting in Hell's Canyon area in Idaho in January. There was not much wind, but there were strong downslope and downriver airflows. I found a good rock overhang, dug out a shallow pit long enough for my 12 year old son, filled it with grass maybe two feet deep, had him get into it, then put another foot of grass over the top of him. That is dry country, and collecting grass takes time. At that point it was too late and dark to collect much more, so I lay down under the overhang on the upriver side of him on top of a small amount of grass. I was damned cold, but he was fine. The good lesson I drilled into him was that if you think you are going to spend the night out, you don't locate a sheltered spot at dusk; you do it in plenty of time to find the right spot and build an appropriate shelter. He wound up thinking the whole thing was a much cooler adventure than my ex did.

I am 25% Cowlitz does that count?

Yes, many times.

Like and with.

At first glance, I thought this thread was "slept with an Indian", then I realized it was "like an Indian".

I sleep like an Osage every night...

First time I read this thread title "Has anyone ever slept like an Indian?" I thought, what?... passed out in a pool of vomit?

But I thought that'd be too mean to post

We prefer pools of oil....

Osage are quite different than the Crow up here... oil is a good thing too!

Elk hunting in Colorado a few years ago we met an old sheep herder named Sherm. Sherm stayed up on the mountain all year long. He slept under an enormous ponderosa, using only sheep skins for protection. He had a few under him and a few over him. Boy, did that guy have some stories...

I thought this was going to be a thread about "Sleeping Indian" wool gear.

ditto


though i much prefer the with

How's the front wheel, Randy?

Overseas, many a time I slept with nothing between me and the bare ground but a thin native girl.

Hmm... I assume you're picturing plains indians in your head? "Indian" is a catch-all that encompasses many, many vastly different cultures. My tribe had no idea what a buffalo was, but I'm sure we did use bear furs.

My mother's uncle used to follow the traditional trade routes from what's now British Colombia to Hudson Bay, presumably by canoe & by foot. From stories I've pieced together, guys like him made beds of spruce boughs & moss, and constructed lean-tos out of boards made from flattened cedar bark. The beds were probably scavenged, but a bedroll and boards would be relatively easy to carry and reuse.

The closest I've come to sleeping in the rough was during one hike when I lost my sleeping pad in some excessively thick brush. I backtracked for that thing a long ways, but had to give up so we'd still cover enough miles that day. For the rest of the trip I made a bed every night out of moss, which I then laid my bivy on top of. The annoying thing about sleeping like that is the time it takes to construct it, night after night. It kept me warm, though.