Combine a ger/yurt and a teepee and what do you get?
A low-cost portable home we call a GerTee.
Update March 5, 2008: Lots of new pictures and a building tutorial at instructables.com.
Imagine a world where nobody ever goes homeless.
What is a GerTee?
GerTees are round homes made of sticks lashed together with plastic ties to form lattice walls. It has roof poles that lean out from a circular wood piece. The roof poles rest on the tops of the walls creating the "tension" needed to hold it all together. The walls are further held together with long ropes which cover the outside weatherproof materials. They can be any size, usually between 14' to 30' feet across, and having from 4' to 10' side walls, it can be 10' to 30' high in the center of the room. They have wooden door frames with doors of all shapes and sizes, big or small windows (or none), and all have optional skylights.
For a foundation, they can rest on a raised tent pad with a ground cloth, plywood on top of pallets, a 1 inch high fitted floor/deck, or a well-made modern American deck. The exterior can be covered with plain or colored felt, animal skins/furs, floresent tarps, canvass, and be painted or decorated with lace edging. The interior is totally up to you.
"Gerteeville" at Camp Redington, June 2008.
The first gertee model was moved to the campground for the summer:
20 inch miniature, 1/12 scale model gertee:
New 20 foot gertee has white marine canvas walls and a pool cover roof:
Interior of the new gertee has a layer of used parachute:
GerTee on YouTube!
Gertee has more than one meaning
We've learned gertee has another meaning that fits perfectly with the way we use it here in Alaska. While our gertee's name originally meant a combination of a ger and a teepee, the word gertee actually means "at home" in Mongolian. The Mongolian people are the ones who pefected the ger/yurt design over 3000 years ago. Americans like me are only humbly following their ingenious portable home design, and gratefully so.
Gerteeville, Alaska-2008 1/11/08- I live in the gertee on the right full time now with my daughter and her son. This design, if it's built with some additional new materials, will withstand temperatures down to 40 below zero, (both celcius and farenheit) and it can be made livable for under $1000.00 USD. We're currently writing a "how-to" book based on the pictures we took of the entire building process. As more people and governments become interested in alternative housing for refugees and homeless people across the globe, we are seeking new ways to share what we've learned about building homes out of recycled materials.
Anyone can build on this idea
Gers and teepees are "open source" designs. Just like the traditional "log cabin" or the ancient idea for making a "wheel," nobody owns the patent on tents. This means anyone, anywhere can build a varriation of our design and they're not violating any copyright laws. Now you know you can't go stealing anyone's blueprints and claim their specific designs as your own, but the very idea of round buildings is part of almost every cultural heritage on earth.
There are infinite possible varieties Every different terrain affects the way the local people build these homes. People always modify home designs depending on their needs and available resources. The American Plains Indians began adapting their teepee design when they aquired horses. The designs of the legendary Bill Copperwaitte, and many others like him, were adaptations of the Mongolian's original ger design, modified to fit American needs, tastes and materials.
I put up my second recycled gertee prototype in the Kenny Lake Mercantile parking lot in the spring of 2007. Local response was pretty funny. Some people thought I was building a chicken coop. Many old Alaskans sat inside their trucks and just stared at the frame (they never got out to ask any questions about it). I think most people assumed it would cave in.
I managed to cover it with almost all recycled plastic, tarps, blankets, sheets, tablecloths and other odd swatches of materials. The frame was hastily moved and re-errected in "GerTeeville" in August. Planned to be used only temporarily, I neglected to choose a good spot (it floods) and ended up building the whole thing pretty much backwards from the way it "should" be done. I almost moved out of it in October but went ahead and added a plywood floor and suddenly it was quite livable.
Our current GerTee is about 18 feet across the middle. This was an accidental size but a fortunate one because it fits perfectly using 4 x 8 foot sheets of plywood and only having to cut triangles off 4 corners. It left about a foot of exposed floor space along the four, long sides, but I was able to stuff the cracks with tarps, blankets, and then I covered it with Radiant Guard.
Are gertees considered legal housing? Yes and No. Many new laws in the United States do not allow owners of property to camp on their own land or anywhere else. The U.S. has become one of the most over-regulated places in the world. In order for a homemade GerTee to pass all the international, national, regional, county and municipal code requirements it would need to be upgraded significantly, as with inspected electric wiring and plumbing, and in many places using only a woodstove for heat is illegal.
HUD News Release December 21, 2007: "BUSH ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES RECORD $1.5 BILLION TO SUPPORT HOMELESS PROGRAMS NATIONWIDE
Nearly 6,000 housing and service programs to benefit from Continuum of Care grants"
http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr07-189.cfm
I think it's the height of irony that as a modern American I would prefer to live in a Mongolian ger in a country that "allows" the space for these kinds of dwellings. Americans accept (and respect) nomadic lifestyles only if it's practiced in expensive metal homes on wheels. In Las Vegas and other southern, sunny destinations, the nicely maintained parks require vistiting motorhomes to be not less than five years old. GerTeeville represents my idea of freedom on a budget.
There are several American yurt manufacturers who build first-class, durable year-round yurts that come with every modern American convienence. Apparently, modern American yurts are not only being put up in many state parks, for both summer and winter, but the high end ones are also approved by HUD! Approved Communitarian housing also includes massive football stadiums full of cots, military posts, tightly controlled compounds, and high density trailer courts filled with rows and rows of tiny metal travel trailers costing 20K.
"U.S. Identifies Critical Needs in Wake of Earthquake Disaster" 20 October 2005, "Officials worry about donor fatigue after frequent natural disasters" By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Security Affairs Writer, gobalsecurity.org
When the Imperial governments steal a people's culture, they do not only destroy their language, religion, or values. They strike at the core cultural structure, and this includes the actual buildings that the people live in.
Permanent buildings are not safe. Earthquakes, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, tornados, hailstorms, bombs, pyrotechnics and other military weapons can all reduce a permanent building to rubble in a matter of minutes. Even if your house or high-rise passes every communitarian inspection on the planet, it can still go down.
This hut was designed for free people who take full responsibility for themselves. GerTees require no screening, tests, building permits, inspector's approval, applications, backgound checks, or deposits, but only if they are set up outside monitored and controlled communitarian collectives, or put up on privately owned land in a free country that's still free from communitarian regulations. (See also ACL: Katrina)
As they have for many thousands of years, tents will, by necessity, again become homes for traveling people who reject being forced into shelters. We think there's still a few humans left alive who would rather live with the animals inside "protected wildlife corridors" than become a slave/drone for the expanding Community Empire. We also think they may prefer a warm tent over a freezing cold one.
Homemade homes can be a lot of fun, cheap, and suprisingly, not a lot of work to build. I call it "safe and affordable housing" because both terms, safe and affordable, are vague communitarian words; they can mean many different things to many different people. For some people "safe" might mean staying free from transitional global government agents, and "affordable" might mean $15.00 a month.
All tents can be lined and insulated with blankets and other materials. You only need to build something inside to drape materials on. I once used 1/2 inch PVC pipe to frame the inside of a very flimsy one season tent. The goal is to build layers that trap the cold and hot air bewteen them.
Check it out: this proves there really are no original ideas! Jan 10, 2006, I just found a Moel y Gerddi House
Butser Ancient Farm, nr Petersfield, excavated Celtic houses from the middle Iron-Age. Here's more pictures of The Ancient Butser Farm. Now, take a quick peek inside a modern Westernized Yurtco Yurt
Guestimates for a 15 foot Gertee Materials List:
saw
scissors
heavy duty waterproof glue
foam insulation in a tube
twine
rope
2 10' 2x4s - for ceiling brace
sturdy metal or wood material for a roof ring (I used a piece of metal made for cement blocks)
70 to 80 5 or 6' 1 inch slats or poles -for wall frame (1/2 inch pvc pipe works too)
18 to 20 8' 1x3 inch boards or poles - for ceiling beams (1 1/2 inch pvc pipe works too)
door frame
door
tarps or tent bottoms (any waterproof material)
8 to 10 blankets or other material - for wall insulation
screens (optional)
carpet remenents
big rocks - for fire pit
Click diagram above for enlarged plan.
Gertees are extremely efficient and livable little huts. People have been living in some sort of variation on this theme forever. This idea is based loosely on a combination of the Mongolian ger (yurt) and the American Plains Indian teepee.
This gertee became possible to build after studying pictures of yurts, teepees and what other people have been building for the last 10,000 years. Yurts and huts go back as far as human history. Yurts were the preferred home of Mongolian people for the last 3000 years, and they still live in them today. I was looking for an easily assembled, transportable wind and snow resistant tent, that allowed for an interior, open fire (for heating and cooking), with a good smoke hole/upward draft.
This past summer I was the lone caretaker at the Denali Wilderness Lodge. I designed and built this gertee in three days using scrap materials I found laying around the resort. I didn't live in gertee since I had a well made Alaskan cabin that was very comfortable. I used this as a guest house for my occassional visitors and a few times as a bath house. The roof is made from salvaged pieces of moldy old tent bottoms, airplane covers, carpenters glue and foam insulation.
Basic directions
I made the walls out of 1/4 inch 4 foot slats that I laid out on the ground crisscrossed, and then tied them together at the cross points with 6 inch strings (this took the longest time). The "roof ring" was a piece of metal for a woodstack (or something) that I wired into a circle. The misc poles were all about 6 feet. I screwed hooks into the roof ends and tied them to the walls with more string. They popped out until I put the roof cover on and the weight held them in place.
The roof ring was also secured with two main beams attached to the roof ring with string and misc wires (beams are used in some older models). For the outside wall covering I used burlap material and inside I draped blankets over the lattice and tucked it under scattered floor rugs. It was very toasty with the fire going although I couldn't stand any higher than my walls or the smoke got in my eyes. I don't have a tally of the actual costs because it was all there.
The thing about this that was so amazing was how easy and fun it was once I got started on the whole idea. Maybe there's some ancient knowledge of how to build shelters that's passed down in the human psyche or something, because I'm certainly not a carpenter or skilled at building anything. This may not look like much by our modern standards but I thought my ancestors might have been proud and relieved to see that this 21st century descendent hasn't lost touch with providing basic necessities. I could live in one of these if I had to, and I'd much rather do that than live in government housing.
Added 9-11-05:Gertee Plans (rudimentary, hand written and produced, includes notes)
Here's our 15 inch model GERTEE built in June 2005: one inch = one foot
This portion is under revision Gertees are eco-friendly, low-impact human dwellings that set up and tear down easily. Modern day plans for sustainable development requires all of us to re-think the way we live, consume, and produce. Environmental protections of rural and wilderness landscapes won't allow Americans to build permanent strucutures or dwellings on protected "community" property, habitats, forests or parks.
All areas connected to the grid can come under martial law at any time (FEMA and many MEPHA laws already in place). Everyone will be required to carry and show ID upon demand. The new rescue teams, (fresh from Iraq) have orders to shoot. The new National ID was passed, and it will include biometric and retinal technology. The database includes everything. In an emergency, the only "safe" places will be FAR AWAY from all areas/roads under "emergency protection." Homeless people locked in camps could be offered an alternative way take care of themselves, as many Americans already know how to do this.
The maximum stay in one area of the National Forests is two weeks. Forest Rangers are now armed and work closely with Homeland Security. When disaster hits an area, people are herded into NGO or government camps, forced to live inside compounds designed especially for "victims." Once inside a refugee camp the residents lose all their rights, their homes, and sometimes the camps become their permanent homes (see West Bank and Gaza, and the Israeli Wall). We think Americans in disaster struck areas may want more than two of FEMA's Hegelian visions for their future quality of life.
These dwellings can be built from scratch in a couple of days, and once designed, they can be dismantled within a few hours, or less. It's basically just a portable tent with a hole in the top and a fire pit inside. The walls can be made any size and out of sticks and strings if necessary.
Stronger roof or wall braces and teepee style insulation can all be added or removed for comfortable interior temperatures. This makes it adaptable to both warm and cold climates and also very practical for daily cooking and constant heating of water.
While simple to build, Gertees are designed around a fire pit so they're NOT foolproof or fireproof like electric wiring and propane gas stoves. They will never explode from a gas leak or go up *poof* because of faulty wiring. They are safer than tall buildings as they do not implode either.
The main ways to burn down a gertee are via lightening, human error, or human attack... and we can never be safe from any of that.
In a free and just society, everyone has the right to provide themselves with the things they need to survive. Housing is at the top of everyone's list of needs. Yet housing in many places is so expensive low-wage workers often work 60 hours a week just to pay the rent. The communitarian solution is to build heavily regulated crackerjack boxes that require individuals to give up all their rights, just for a place to sleep. There's also the whole way they cram everyone into camps when they're dislocated or become refugees...I'd rather not do that either when the flu virus or the terrorists strike again. I want to provide my own housing, under my own conditions, like they do in Mongolia. Isn't it crazy that apparently the people in Mongolia are free in a way that Americans are not? They're not stuck in HUD projects.
In a nomadic culture (such as America has become) it is the height of lunacy to not provide cheap or free camping spaces outside the city limits for long-term visitors or visiting workers on a budget. The fact that we can only spend 2 weeks in the National Forest is unbelievable to me. The reality of how the government is locking up all the space is part of why I keep the ACL going. Homeless people in the U.S. could be given a few more options other than cramped city shelters and mess hall food. It's become illegal to live in the forests. In most American cities it is illegal to camp in the parks. Many wandering souls are creating camps across the country anyway, much to the dismay of the people who look at homelessness as a "problem." Homelessness isn't a problem if people are allowed the space to set up whatever type of dwelling they can afford. Whoever said the government has to control and provide all housing? It's a statist ideology, at best.
Not everyone can live inside four square walls. Not everyone has an RV. Not everyone works steadily, or has the same needs. So, why should everyone be required to live in the same way? Cannery workers in Alaska live in tent cities around the area... and even in Manhattan there was a big "homeless camp" in a park near the Village. But in Seattle, where the communitarian plans are the rule of law, homeless people are degraded, persecuted, and chased out of church sponsored parking lots.
I became homeless on Christmas in 2001, after Hugh Sisley evicted me and refused to pay me for three years of full time legal research defending his property against the city's "action plan." Fortunately, I found a beautiful spot over on the Penninsula. I put up a modern 12x12 tent in a ten acre "forest" with a pond, electric outlet, and fresh water supply. I had to do a lot of modifications before I made it warm enough to sit still and write, but it was a great experience. I learned a lot about what's really important and necessary. And, being me, I imagined ways to make it more livable.
When looking online I found a guy back east who built an overnighter out on his property with a few friends. He took the simplest approach to building a "weekend" yurt. They used the barest minimum of tools and materials. This inspired me to look beyond the confines of all the modern designs that told me I needed to buy so much lumber and hardware. It was astounding to grasp that they just tied their whole structure together with strings.
After my experience on the Penninsula, I really wanted a teepee. When I went camping for 4 weeks in the Big Horns in 2003 I found myself surrounded by lodge pole pines. But the whole job of cutting and handling 16 to 20 18 footers was too daunting for me to make any real plans to build one. Because of the teepee's need for so many long poles I moved on to the idea of a a yurt. My little dream was always to order one someday when I could afford to buy one. Nice modern yurts start at around 4 grand.
NEW -- 10/18/05 -- INFORMATION ON FELT TENTS, YURTS, GERS by Pat Spark, Manager of the Feltmaker's List. "This file is a collection of various messages having the common theme of felt tents,yurts and gers that I have collected from my reading of the various internet fiber lists, although they are primarily from the feltmaker's list."
This Mother Earth News article about yurts and tipis includes a good list of links at the end.
Who is Bill Copperwaitte? "William S. Coperthwaite is the first North American Yurt builder developer of the modern day yurt. He is responsible for adapting the ancient skin and frame traditional Mongolian yurt to a western sawn timber frame design. He also developed the first lattice roof design built back in the early 60's with poles and birch bark. He did this on the grounds of the Yurt Foundation-his home on the coast of Maine. Bill is David Raitt's mentor and is the original American Yurt imagineer. Bill has created more versions of the yurt than anyone. A doctor in education at Harvard, Bill has and continues to inspire many of us through his seminars and lectures, writings and interviews. Bill shares the ancient wisdom handed down to him through his hands on approach to research with the Eskimo, Laplander and traditional craftsman throughout the world. His Yurt Plans and Yurt Calenders help fund this research and support the Yurt Foundation."
Yurtco.com offers the first lodgepole pine rafters and makes beautiful yurts.
Building a yurt has great photos of the entire process!Very nice of them to put this page online. Their interior pictures are absolutely stunning examples of how lovely yurts can be. Must see these!
Yurt magic
...building an enchanting instant house by Claire Wolfe is a lovely introduction to living year round in a modern made, meduim priced ($5 to 10,000) pre-built yurt. Yurts really can be designed to become highly efficent and livable dwellings that include all the expected American amenities.
Nomadics Tipi Makers are another lovely example of a 35 year old company. They made all the tipis for the Keven Costner movie Dances With Wolves.
Update. Several months ago I got a response letter to this section from a woman who used to work at DWL. I won't post it here because she didn't respond to my request for permission. I have a policy of only printing letters without permission that come from the Communitarians. I was very impressed with her need to show me a different side to the "outsider v. Alaskan" dialectic, and I really appreciated her assurance that her and her co-workers shared and learned from all the locals they interacted with during their season.
This email from former DWL employees gave me hope that the conflict is recent, communitarian based, and most definately not an "American made conflict. She reaffirmed what I wanted to be the real truth, that our people are still basically "good" people at their core.
My opinion of that fact has never wavered, but it was based on hope. My dedidcation to America is rewarded by honest, forthright "Yankee ape" letters such as hers. I think we instinctively know the dialectics are false, and would prefer to get back to business of being genuine Americans who always can manage (on their own) to grow wiser together. I also was touched by her gentle and kind tone.
DWL is a hundred year old hunting camp in the interior Alaskan Mountain Range. It's up for sale (click picture for info about the auction). Established at the turn of the century, it fed Fairbanks and AK Railroad workers with wild game meat up until about 1939. It was owned by Alaskans until about 1965 when it was purchased by Lynn Castle, a "world-renowned" wild game hunter with a background in land and game management.
In those days AK fish and game granted huge protected area to individuals. (Denali National Park was first suggested by two hunters who wanted to protect their hunting grounds, perhaps following the lead of Wild Bill Cody who helped preserve Yellowstone in 1905 for Royal hunters.) Infamous for his gutsy and sometimes "questionable" do-anything attitude, Castle turned the resort into a first class hunting lodge with hunts costing up to $50,000 per hunt (this price included hunts from his other camps in Kotzebue, Barrow and fishing trips on the Kenai too).
Bart the horse was one of my visitors at DWL. Bart was raised at DWL, so even though I was a cheechacko in those parts, he knew the trail. His wrangler knew a few of my neighborhood trails too. Bart walked 45 miles in to Wood River from Healy over Cody Creek Pass. Anyone interested in making the trip with Joe next summer can contact us and we'll see if we can track him down for you. I also met a few Alaskan bush pilots who will fly you out there for about 500.00 one way. The resort was for sale last I heard and the new owners may not be happy to see you. But there's plenty of room to camp all around and the airstrip is on state property. Anyone can camp on state land; I asked the Ak State Trooper who flew by and visited one day.
Under his "visionary" thinking and focused direction, Castle gathered together many strong, capable guides who built this fantastic assortment of barns, corrals, airstrip, sawmill, machine shop, cabins, a gourmet kitchen and Bavarian dining room, a theatre, and even a chalet for his second wife Penny that was featured in Better Homes and Gardens. Lynn Castle died in a plane crash at Kansas Creek in 1991 when he was in early 40s. Legend has it Castle once shot at a military plane flying too close to his herds, and Healy is rumored to have had the biggest party in their town's history because of his conflicts with some of the more "old-school" Alaskan residents. Castle guarded his vast territory with a vengeance, and the stories about him differ depending on the storyteller. Right after he died these mountains had two devastating winters that killed off the dall sheep pouplation. The property has ended up changing hands several times, and many of the new employees spread the rumour that the hunters "killed off all the sheep."
For the past decade it's been owned and operated primarily by environmentalists who hire kids and foreigners whose vegan and Marxist beliefs conflict with the tradition of the men who DO things productive. Real men dragged in all the lumber and machinery needed to build everything at DWL. While I found the hunters to be a fairly easygoing lot, the eco-employees and naturalists working for slave wages for the mega-corporations over in Denali Park are almost ALL anti-hunters, anti-guns, and mostly anti-Alaskan. DWL is 50+ miles from the park boundary yet what goes on at DWL was a major concern to these young "outsider" Americans. There is a very recent history of conflicts between eco-tourism and hunters, during the summer of 2003 the lodge scheduled nature hikes where the hunters were. In 2004 I walked into the middle of a genuine fabricated dialectical argument. Both sides of the eco v. hunter dialectic have many misunderstandings of each other's values.
Most hunters I talked with don't seem to understand the eco agenda, and avoid and ignore the hikers and naturalists whenever possible. The hunter in this picture shared several meals in my cabin with visiting eco-employees from the Park. I thought we all had a good time together, and I was suprised to hear the weird rumors that later came down the "musher pipeline." (In fact there were more rumors about me at DWL since high school! One of the younger guides (who was rumored to be acting as if he were the "next Lynn Castle") tried to get me fired 3 days before I left, for sharing my gertee with traders and allowing their horses to feed and rest at our camp.
It took me a while to figure out that it wan't only the enviromentalists who didn't want me to be friendly to the hunters. There is no such thing as anonymity in the wilderness, especially if you're a woman all alone in the middle of hundreds of miles of tundra, mtns, glaciers and wild rivers that change course by the hour.) I learned a lot from Chris, he was skilled, polite and fun, and he shared his stories along with his meat. His hunt was a solitary adventure that required a tremendous amount of planning and stamina. He ran up and down the mountains for a week, camped alone in griz country making sure he took proper and legal care of his game. I have to admit that having him around made me feel "safer" for a couple days since there were griz all over the place. And I was really happy he was there the day the squirrel threw acorns down on the tin roof of the pump house.
Nothing in the backwoods is easy, it's a lot of work, and while there are obviously many kinds of people who hunt, several of the older guides I met share the entire experience with their outside hunter-clients. I don't hunt personally, I just wanted to be able to trade with the hunters. It never occured to me that trading with the hunters would cause a "stir." All my Alaskan family and friends fill their freezers with moose when they can, so I was looking forward to August 10 and adding fresh meat to my diet. I was grateful for fresh dall sheep from VB, caribou and ptarmigan from Chris, eggs and bread from Tom and his wife, and I finally got some moose from Joe. I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid, and it was sure an odd feeling watching horses and men ride into my camp. I got to say things like "Howdy boys." I also don't think I'll ever hear a small plane fly over and feel a brief rush of hope that they're landing. I was paid $750.00 a month to stay out there alone. The eco-kids told me they would have done it for free. To them slavery is an "honor" if the prison is a natural habitat. I asked them to please not volunteer for my job.
This new breed of "volunteer" worker needs to be studied by older Americans. Who trained our kids to say "Americans are lazy and greedy" as if they aren't Americans too? Who told them carrying weapons in the wilderness is wrong? (I was known as the "single woman at DWL with the shotgun." None of the naturalists carry guns, even after what happened in Katmai, and my possession made me seem like a wacko to them. To the Alaskans who armed me it made me appear able to go alone. I really was a woman alone in the wilderness, and griz and dogs aren't the only predators I considered beforehand. This was the first time I truely understood what the Second Amendment guarantees. It guaranteed my chances for survival.)
There are several hunting guides who share guiding rights to parts of the Wood River Valley. For a fly-in hunting adventure to the Wood River Valley, be sure to contact Max Schwab in Talkeetna for rates and reservations. You can also canoe all the way to Fairbanks via the Nenana and Tanana Rivers. In winter you can mush in. No snowmachines or motorcycles. For the best portable canoe I've ever seen, check out Pro Pioneers.
I liked my bosses okay and I really liked a few of the employees, but how is it environmentalists and foreigners have no problem buying and using all the facilities built by Alaskans? I heard the DWL employees spent their summers partying all night in the lodges by the giant fireplaces. They say they "love Alaska." They freely use everything built by Alaskans, but at the same time they hold zero respect for the Alaskans who built the place. I also didn't notice them mingling with the local Indian people who are the original "naturalists."
Environmentally trained kids also disrespect the gold miners who developed the old Kantishna gold camp in Denali Park. It's as if the men and women who had the courage and the strength to build roads across the wilderness, to endure the winters, who built cabins and businesses across the Alaskan wilderness can all be degraded now for their ability to extract and manage local natural resources. Today, this entire region is governed by "small" business councils who make deals with National Park directors. A million dollar business is small fry next to the new, giant Dutch Holland and British Princess "industrial tourist" facilities.
The fate of DWL depends on the new owners. Just think, for a mere 3 million I could have started a town.
Yurts and teepees are only two plausible ideas for building a temporary shelter. There's many ways to think outside the box. Imagine having a bedroom and living space set up in just a few days. There are also many ways to set up portable water storage tanks and to build baths and showers. I used a horse feeder once. Washed it out, draped the bottom and sides with clean sheets, pumped cold water into 5 gallon buckets and hauled it outside. This would have worked better if I'd used a metal trough elevated with bricks and left room for a small fire underneath it. Another idea for bathing is old fashioned Japanese style outside baths, like the ones they used in Hawaii for their pineapple field workers. Send us your ideas for livable shelters and we'll post/link to them on this page.
![[ Safe & affordable housing ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/gertee2.gif)
1/11/08- I live in the gertee on the right full time now with my daughter and her son. This design, if it's built with some additional new materials, will withstand temperatures down to 40 below zero, (both celcius and farenheit) and it can be made livable for under $1000.00 USD. We're currently writing a "how-to" book based on the pictures we took of the entire building process. As more people and governments become interested in alternative housing for refugees and homeless people across the globe, we are seeking new ways to share what we've learned about building homes out of recycled materials. 
Every different terrain affects the way the local people build these homes. People always modify home designs depending on their needs and available resources. The American Plains Indians began adapting their teepee design when they aquired horses. The designs of the legendary Bill Copperwaitte, and many others like him, were adaptations of the Mongolian's original ger design, modified to fit American needs, tastes and materials.
I managed to cover it with almost all recycled plastic, tarps, blankets, sheets, tablecloths and other odd swatches of materials. The frame was hastily moved and re-errected in "GerTeeville" in August. Planned to be used only temporarily, I neglected to choose a good spot (it floods) and ended up building the whole thing pretty much backwards from the way it "should" be done. I almost moved out of it in October but went ahead and added a plywood floor and suddenly it was quite livable. 
Yes and No. Many new laws in the United States do not allow owners of property to camp on their own land or anywhere else. The U.S. has become one of the most over-regulated places in the world. In order for a homemade GerTee to pass all the international, national, regional, county and municipal code requirements it would need to be upgraded significantly, as with inspected electric wiring and plumbing, and in many places using only a woodstove for heat is illegal. 
There are several American yurt manufacturers who build first-class, durable year-round yurts that come with every modern American convienence. Apparently, modern American yurts are not only being put up in many state parks, for both summer and winter, but the high end ones are also approved by HUD! Approved Communitarian housing also includes massive football stadiums full of cots, military posts, tightly controlled compounds, and high density trailer courts filled with rows and rows of tiny metal travel trailers costing 20K. 
Gertees are extremely efficient and livable little huts. People have been living in some sort of variation on this theme forever. This idea is based loosely on a combination of the Mongolian ger (yurt) and the American Plains Indian ![[ Safe & affordable housing ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/gerteeinterior1.jpg)
I made the walls out of 1/4 inch 4 foot slats that I laid out on the ground crisscrossed, and then tied them together at the cross points with 6 inch strings (this took the longest time). The "roof ring" was a piece of metal for a woodstack (or something) that I wired into a circle. The misc poles were all about 6 feet. I screwed hooks into the roof ends and tied them to the walls with more string. They popped out until I put the roof cover on and the weight held them in place. 
The roof ring was also secured with two main beams attached to the roof ring with string and misc wires (beams are used in some older models). For the outside wall covering I used burlap material and inside I draped blankets over the lattice and tucked it under scattered floor rugs. It was very toasty with the fire going although I couldn't stand any higher than my walls or the smoke got in my eyes. I don't have a tally of the actual costs because it was all there. 
The thing about this that was so amazing was how easy and fun it was once I got started on the whole idea. Maybe there's some ancient knowledge of how to build shelters that's passed down in the human psyche or something, because I'm certainly not a carpenter or skilled at building anything. This may not look like much by our modern standards but I thought my ancestors might have been proud and relieved to see that this 21st century descendent hasn't lost touch with providing basic necessities. I could live in one of these if I had to, and I'd much rather do that than live in government housing.![[ Safe & affordable housing ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/newroof.jpg)
Gertees are eco-friendly, low-impact human dwellings that set up and tear down easily. Modern day plans for sustainable development requires all of us to re-think the way we live, consume, and produce. Environmental protections of rural and wilderness landscapes won't allow Americans to build permanent strucutures or dwellings on protected "community" property, habitats, forests or parks.
All areas connected to the grid can come under martial law at any time (FEMA and many MEPHA laws already in place). Everyone will be required to carry and show ID upon demand. The new rescue teams, (fresh from Iraq) have orders to shoot. The new National ID was passed, and it will include biometric and retinal technology. The database includes everything. In an emergency, the only "safe" places will be FAR AWAY from all areas/roads under "emergency protection." Homeless people locked in camps could be offered an alternative way take care of themselves, as many Americans already know how to do this.
These dwellings can be built from scratch in a couple of days, and once designed, they can be dismantled within a few hours, or less. It's basically just a portable tent with a hole in the top and a fire pit inside. The walls can be made any size and out of sticks and strings if necessary. 
In most American cities it is illegal to camp in the parks. Many wandering souls are creating camps across the country anyway, much to the dismay of the people who look at homelessness as a "problem." Homelessness isn't a problem if people are allowed the space to set up whatever type of dwelling they can afford. Whoever said the government has to control and provide all housing? It's a statist ideology, at best.
Update. Several months ago I got a response letter to this section from a woman who used to work at DWL. I won't post it here because she didn't respond to my request for permission. I have a policy of only printing letters without permission that come from the Communitarians. I was very impressed with her need to show me a different side to the "outsider v. Alaskan" dialectic, and I really appreciated her assurance that her and her co-workers shared and learned from all the locals they interacted with during their season. 
![[ Horse sense ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/nikiandbart.jpg)
Bart the horse was one of my visitors at DWL. Bart was raised at DWL, so even though I was a cheechacko in those parts, he knew the trail. His wrangler knew a few of my neighborhood trails too. Bart walked 45 miles in to Wood River from Healy over Cody Creek Pass. Anyone interested in making the trip with Joe next summer can contact us and we'll see if we can track him down for you. I also met a few Alaskan bush pilots who will fly you out there for about 500.00 one way. The resort was for sale last I heard and the new owners may not be happy to see you. But there's plenty of room to camp all around and the airstrip is on state property. Anyone can camp on state land; I asked the Ak State Trooper who flew by and visited one day. ![[ palace ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/palacetheatre.jpg)
Under his "visionary" thinking and focused direction, Castle gathered together many strong, capable guides who built this fantastic assortment of barns, corrals, airstrip, sawmill, machine shop, cabins, a gourmet kitchen and Bavarian dining room, a theatre, and even a chalet for his second wife Penny that was featured in Better Homes and Gardens. Lynn Castle died in a plane crash at Kansas Creek in 1991 when he was in early 40s. Legend has it Castle once shot at a military plane flying too close to his herds, and Healy is rumored to have had the biggest party in their town's history because of his conflicts with some of the more "old-school" Alaskan residents. Castle guarded his vast territory with a vengeance, and the stories about him differ depending on the storyteller. Right after he died these mountains had two devastating winters that killed off the dall sheep pouplation. The property has ended up changing hands several times, and many of the new employees spread the rumour that the hunters "killed off all the sheep." ![[golddiggers ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/Gold Diggers1.jpg)
For the past decade it's been owned and operated primarily by environmentalists who hire kids and foreigners whose vegan and Marxist beliefs conflict with the tradition of the men who DO things productive. Real men dragged in all the lumber and machinery needed to build everything at DWL. While I found the hunters to be a fairly easygoing lot, the eco-employees and naturalists working for slave wages for the mega-corporations over in Denali Park are almost ALL anti-hunters, anti-guns, and mostly anti-Alaskan. DWL is 50+ miles from the park boundary yet what goes on at DWL was a major concern to these young "outsider" Americans. There is a very recent history of conflicts between eco-tourism and hunters, during the summer of 2003 the lodge scheduled nature hikes where the hunters were. In 2004 I walked into the middle of a genuine fabricated dialectical argument. Both sides of the eco v. hunter dialectic have many misunderstandings of each other's values. ![[chris ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/laundry day1.jpg)
Most hunters I talked with don't seem to understand the eco agenda, and avoid and ignore the hikers and naturalists whenever possible. The hunter in this picture shared several meals in my cabin with visiting eco-employees from the Park. I thought we all had a good time together, and I was suprised to hear the weird rumors that later came down the "musher pipeline." (In fact there were more rumors about me at DWL since high school! One of the younger guides (who was rumored to be acting as if he were the "next Lynn Castle") tried to get me fired 3 days before I left, for sharing my gertee with traders and allowing their horses to feed and rest at our camp.
![[deck ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/dwlflightdeck.jpg)
Nothing in the backwoods is easy, it's a lot of work, and while there are obviously many kinds of people who hunt, several of the older guides I met share the entire experience with their outside hunter-clients. I don't hunt personally, I just wanted to be able to trade with the hunters. It never occured to me that trading with the hunters would cause a "stir." All my Alaskan family and friends fill their freezers with moose when they can, so I was looking forward to August 10 and adding fresh meat to my diet. I was grateful for fresh dall sheep from VB, caribou and ptarmigan from Chris, eggs and bread from Tom and his wife, and I finally got some moose from Joe. I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid, and it was sure an odd feeling watching horses and men ride into my camp. I got to say things like "Howdy boys." I also don't think I'll ever hear a small plane fly over and feel a brief rush of hope that they're landing. I was paid $750.00 a month to stay out there alone. The eco-kids told me they would have done it for free. To them slavery is an "honor" if the prison is a natural habitat. I asked them to please not volunteer for my job.![[deck ]](http://nord.twu.net/acl/images/nikiflightdeck.jpg)
There are several hunting guides who share guiding rights to parts of the Wood River Valley. For a fly-in hunting adventure to the Wood River Valley, be sure to contact 
Environmentally trained kids also disrespect the 
Yurts and teepees are only two plausible ideas for building a temporary shelter. There's many ways to think outside the box. Imagine having a bedroom and living space set up in just a few days. There are also many ways to set up portable water storage tanks and to build baths and showers. I used a horse feeder once. Washed it out, draped the bottom and sides with clean sheets, pumped cold water into 5 gallon buckets and hauled it outside. This would have worked better if I'd used a metal trough elevated with bricks and left room for a small fire underneath it. Another idea for bathing is old fashioned Japanese style outside baths, like the ones they used in Hawaii for their pineapple field workers. Send us your ideas for livable shelters and we'll post/link to them on this page.
