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

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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’t survive out here in the winter with no tent, no heaters, and no sleeping bags.

You ready, Nathan?
Yeah!

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 sun rise. We’re gonna need every ounce of sunlight we can to get our shelter built and gather enough firewood for the night. It’s gonna 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.

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[Laughter]
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All right, I think this is where we’re gonna make our campsite—right here. Let’s get cracking.

We need to build a shelter and a fire quickly. When you’re moving around, 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 be just right.

Let’s see what’s down here… Ugh. Oh.

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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.

There we go. I take these, and I’m gonna wrap you up a little bit—one reindeer back, and then another one. There you go, Nate. You feeling warmer?
Good.
Cool, though.

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We’re done.

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 a ferrous rod and steel. I’m having a little trouble starting my fire, so I’m gonna 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. All right, get you off the ground. Does that feel better? Your hands feel better, Nathan?

Here, try this again. It’s probably cool.

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Moths.
Yeah, yep. There’s moths, but only in the summer.

Here you go. You got it, buddy. You want your little rolling state juice?

I need at least one luxury per camping trip. Let’s do this—campfire Easy Mac.

You’re doing as good as you mom.
I did as good as Mom?
Yeah, thank you.
You enjoying your mac and cheese?
Yeah.

All right, get our beds made. And tonight, we’re gonna be sleeping on reindeer hides. Here, 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 in negative temperatures 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. 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, 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?

Okay, it’s not loaded, but it’s really careful. Okay, wow. That’s how you like that. And then you like that, and that puts a bullet in it.

Daytime we’ll—uh, no.

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 wood pile 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, just keep hiding. You wanna just sleep under the caribou hide?
All right.

That’s crazy.

Well, 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 hides.

I’m doing pretty good. I’m staying warm. My back’s a little cold, but it’s 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.

You can see the two logs I was using as a heat reflector—the 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, and that’s it.

All of that wood I cut—it’s gone. I mean, that was like four or five spruce trees’ worth.

Well, 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, and maybe—just maybe—last us until sunup.

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 gonna kind of quietly make some breakfast, so when he wakes up here in an hour or so, I have something warm for him 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, we’ll have eggs here soon.

Well, I finished breakfast, and Nathan didn’t stir at all. 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 is in there.

All right, time to add the seasonings. Got a little garlic there. Let’s see… Oh, got some frozen basil, got some bay leaves, some oregano. Ew. Oh yeah, that looks and smells perfect.

Well, it’s 9 o’clock, and I’ve got two surprises: one, Nathan’s still asleep, and two, I still have some wood left over. Oh, we’re gonna make it to sunrise!

But we’re gonna let Nathan sleep for just a little bit more here. Then I’m gonna wake him up.

I gotta tell you, 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 I just laid his boots and hung up his jacket right there by the fire, so hopefully, they’ll be toasty warm when he gets up.

Nathan. Nathan, buddy. Buddy, wake up. You slept in a lot!

Mmm.

Nathan, do you want some hot chocolate and breakfast?

Here’s some bacon.

Mmm. 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.

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