If you have canvas tents or are thinking of getting some, you need to know something about canvas care as well as looking after tents in general. Some site owners avoid tents because of the maintenance – one should remember that they are tents after all and you can’t just put them up and […]
If you have canvas tents or are thinking of getting some, you need to know something about canvas care as well as looking after tents in general. Some site owners avoid tents because of the maintenance – one should remember that they are tents after all and you can’t just put them up and not think about them when the Weather Gods are playing or let them sit unheated through the winter. If you want something with lower maintenance, best go for something more solid like a hut but personally, I think the romance, beauty and simplicity of nomadic tents, such as tipis and yurts, is well worth the effort.
Looking up in a tipi
So canvas…first I would advise you NOT go for cheap canvas however tempting it seems. A lot of the imported Mongolian yurts are made from a heavy canvas which is made for the dry climate of Mongolia but doesn’t adapt well to damp European climates and the canvas will quickly leak. Our main work is making yurt covers, and have re-covered many a Mongolian yurt barely in its infancy.
Sewing yurt covers
The usual canvas used in the UK is 12oz FWR (flame, water and rot-proofed) poly/cotton, Before 2007 it was cotton that was more popular, but the rot-proofing agent used in the proofing was banned, so a new one was used which was actually water-soluble! It meant that there was a batch of bad canvas around that time and we heard horror stories of canvas rotting after a year. Although a new rot-proofing agent was developed, the industry had moved into poly/cotton as it is more rot-resistant and stronger, with 50% polyester content it’s really a game changer.
It’s hard to say how long canvas lasts as it depends on many factors, so we don’t offer any guarantee on its life, but if looked after, one can expect 5-7 years for a tent left up all year. One consideration in pitching your tents is the choice of location. If pitched under trees, the canvas gets dirty from falling leaves and the run-off from tree sap and this can contribute to it perishing. Trees to be extra careful of are pine and willow. Also, obviously, if pitched in the shade the canvas doesn’t dry out so quickly and generally in the UK, the damp is more damaging than UV (although this summer has challenged that trend!) In hotter climates, such as Southern Europe the UV exposure continent, damages the cotton element of the canvas so it is worth thinking about alternatives to poly/cotton (see below about acrylic canvas).
Our Yurt and tipi garden in Israel
Next …general maintenance… we recommend reproofing the canvas once a year which can greatly increase its longevity. Before reproofing one should clean the canvas with a soft brush and warm water, no soap, no scrubbing, no pressure washing, but as long as you reproof the canvas well it should be OK. Remember that any cleaning will remove some of the proofing. (Obviously, white canvas shows the dirt and mould more than other colours, so many of our customers, when replacing yurt covers are choosing to replace white covers with darker colours, such as sand).
Reproofing is usually done with a paint-on solution when the tent goes up for the season – various products are available, but mostly only contain waterproofing and rotproofing agents. Recently the FWR proofing solution used by the manufacturers themselves has become available. (We can supply this at manufacturers cost). We have heard stories of tent covers being sent to professional cleaners, who have little experience of canvas and come back unproofed and sometimes perished although there are now companies who can clean and reproof for you.
Another consideration in canvas care is if the tents are left standing through the winter, they should be heated at least every few days, usually with a wood-burning stove (or open fire in a tipi) and, if the tents are not being used, they should be taken down when the canvas is bone dry and packed somewhere dry and rodent free. The summer before last we had a mice invasion on our site in Italy and we were surprised to discover that the mice chose to eat through the proofed canvas of the yurts rather than the wool blankets and mattresses inside. No accounting for taste. (Troubleshooting rodents and creepy-crawlies is for another chapter).
More yurt covers
There is a common perception that cottons are more ‘natural’ than synthetic fabrics, but people forget that they are proofed with chemicals. Our customers are choosing to go for acrylic fabrics as an alternative to poly/cotton as, although much more expensive, it is a better investment longterm, it greatly outlasts the poly/cotton as it doesn’t rot and it’s also stronger. The acrylic proofing isn’t in a coating but in the thread itself, thus doesn’t need reproofing the same way. It is a woven fabric so looks almost identical to the poly/cotton, yet feels nicer to touch and stays clean and new looking for much longer.
Acrylic canvas wedding pavillion
We are Spirits Intent, expert makers of nomadic tents and specialists in the canvas side of things, call on us if you need any advice on canvas or need new covers for your structures.
The things that people ask me at first is ‘ Why do you live in a yurt?’ Closely followed by…. ‘What’s it like?’ Well, first let me introduce myself. I am a 40 year old woman who is Mum to 2 boys ages 8 and 6. My husband is called Mike. We used to live […]
The things that people ask me at first is ‘ Why do you live in a yurt?’ Closely followed by…. ‘What’s it like?’
Well, first let me introduce myself.
I am a 40 year old woman who is Mum to 2 boys ages 8 and 6. My husband is called Mike.
We used to live in a nice house in Bristol, UK and realised that we were missing the children’s childhoods and working too hard to pay for it all.
One day, Mike suggested that we sell the house and travel round the world. I thought he was joking at first. Within a few months we sold the house, took the children out of school and set off with a one-way ticket on the trip of a lifetime.
On 2 October 2015 we flew to Indonesia and made our way around South East Asia, employing a strategy called ‘World schooling’ where children lead their education, sparked by curiosity of the world around them. We climbed mountains in the Himalayas and snorkelled with sharks in Belize. We scaled the Grand Canyon and camped on a beach amongst wild kangaroos in Australia.
Our trip was immense, hard work and awesome in every sense of the word. Increasingly though, our thoughts turned to when- and if, we should return home. We missed our family and friends and being part of a community. Most of all we DIDN’T want to fall back into the trap of working to pay bills again. Old friends of ours had a smallholding in Wales with a few acres to spare. For years they had suggested we come and live on their mountain. We skyped them from our beach hut and apparently they were serious. We’d split utility bills and the field was ours, if we wanted it.
We looked at converting one of their barns, craning in a container… but we had always loved camping and yurt holidays. Having spent over a year living in the same room and out of 2 backpacks, a yurt would feel palatial.
Mike set about researching yurts and we joined some Facebook groups to talk to people and get an idea of what we’d need to live fairly comfortably. With friends in the festival trade, installing infrastructure into our field was no problem so we focussed on what we needed from the yurt:
Oh, and we wanted an ‘indoor’ toilet.
We ordered our 22’ Turkmen Yurt from Spirits Intent and that was our decision made. Updates on their Facebook page were exciting as we could see our new home being built from the other side of the world.
Mike was clever enough to bag himself a job when we were in Guatemala, so we had a deadline for the yurt build. We had to be moved in so he could start work on the 4 December 2017. After a whirlwind of reunions with our friends and family, we took ourselves to mid Wales on the 24 November as the weather forecast was… ok…We had been chasing the sun for 14 months and I think we had forgotten how harsh British weather could be. Anyway, this was Wales and we needed somewhere to live so we had to get on with it.
Nitsan from Spirits Intent arrived at our friends’ house, hungry and serious. He had been building our yurt with some volunteers and had come to stay the night before- sleeping in his van, to brace us for the hard work that was to come on Build Day. I felt sick with nerves as I heard the wind and rain battering at the house windows. I think the weather forecast for an‘ok’ day might have been optimistic. The whole family pitched in. We tried to ignore the hailstorm and Nitsan showed the youngest how to do a sun dance. Oddly, it seemed to work a bit even just to lighten the mood as we got battered by chunks of ice being hurled at us from the sky.
The trellis was up, the doors and rafters tentatively slid into place. We stopped to warm up with soup and I realise I had lost sensation in most of my body due to the numbing cold. We piled on the layers and the children decided to stay indoors after the rest of it (I couldn’t blame them)
We knew we’d start to lose daylight at about 3pm. So we hurriedly put up the felt insulation and lifted the canvas on with the last ounce of strength we had in us. Tying the fabric to the lattice was painfully slow as I had to cling to the edge of raised platform whilst my hands were frozen by the cold. Nitsan’s rallies of positivity were soothing, as our energy fell to its lowest ebb.
Then, all of a sudden, despite every sort of weather that the Welsh mountainside could throw at us, we had a yurt.
We were soaking wet and exhausted but we had a home all of our own. We waved Nitsan an emotional goodbye, as our team disbanded- the hard work cementing a bond between us.
For the next couple of weeks we worked at sanding the floors, putting in the filtered water, installing a gas boiler, hooking up electric, building a kitchen, digging drainage ditches and laying pathways… lastly we brought in our furniture.
So, what’s life like in the yurt?
The day we moved in our furniture a blizzard came and covered everything in 6 inches of snow. We slept and woke up to a world that was like Narnia.
It looked beautiful but the reality was hard work. The first night the canvas dripped in multiple places as the seams had not had a chance to bed in…. the children were frozen from playing but it was hard to keep them dry and warm. We had no toilet, running water or drainage and icy drops of water falling on our faces when we were in bed.
After the blizzard though, normal Winter feels easy! We have learnt our lessons, dried out, and are enjoying nature as we fall asleep to flicker of the fire, the sound of the river and Barn Owls calling along the valley.
We have found a rhythm and have learnt that with this life, you can take nothing for granted. We wake and start the fire. We have learnt to shower in the evenings when the yurt is warmest and appreciate that hot running water fresh from a mountain spring is a beautiful kind of sorcery. We keep the woodpile well stocked and keep muddy boots by the door. We have very warm duvets and wear lots of layers. We use ratchet straps to tie down the yurt as 80mph winds are quite common here. We empty the composting toilet every week and we have found that the Ultrasonic pest deterrents really work. Yes, we have found droppings amongst our dinner plates and had whole bags of clothes eaten by mice! Never again.
The horses in the field next door come and bray to tell us when the weather is bad and we all enjoy being connected to our surroundings.
There isn’t a day that we don’t open the yurt door and have our breaths taken away at the sight of the mountains around us. Yes, it would be nice to have conveniences like ‘heating’ but the amount we’d have to sacrifice for that just isn’t a price we want to pay.
At the moment, anyway.
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Thankyou Sara.
For more on this family adventure…see Wheelers on the Bus: Facebook page
And their lovely Blog
We have been sewing Yurt Covers in our way for many years and have never really written about how we do it and what makes us special. So here goes… The main thing that makes us different from other yurt makers is that we usually make our yurt covers without seeing the frame. “So how […]
We have been sewing Yurt Covers in our way for many years and have never really written about how we do it and what makes us special. So here goes…
The main thing that makes us different from other yurt makers is that we usually make our yurt covers without seeing the frame. “So how do we do this”?, you may ask. Well it is a fine art that we have refined and fine tuned over the years, and have now made (literally) hundreds of canvas and felt yurt covers in this way.
It is an ancient recipe starting with a measurement sheet which we send to be completed by the yurt owner, with lots of clear instructions to ensure the process is idiot-proof (although there have been a few cases…). We then add lots of circle geometry, a bit of algebra, Pythagoras theorem and sometimes some trigonometry, before getting out our amazing Vietnamese scissors to start cutting the canvas, the webbing, the cord and all those little bits and pieces which make our yurt covers so delicious.
Top quality canvas is an important ingredient in the pot. We usually make our yurt covers from 12oz polycotton canvas which is flame, water and rot-proofed, and have worked with the UK’s canvas proofers to raise the ‘water head’ (level of water proofing).
And we make our yurt linings with a really snuggly wool felt.
We have two trusty sewing machines, both walking foots (feet?) which means that the heavy fabric is always held tight from slipping. One is a Durkopp-Adler, and the other a Seiko. The Durkopp is the Rolls Royce of sewing machines (which means a tiny screw can cost £75), and is fast, good for the long stretches. It can also sew through a surprising number of canvas layers. The Seiko is better for detailed work like windows and it is lighter to move around so is the one that usually goes out on missions.
Windows are nice in the yurt covers: as our late friend, Bill Coperthwaite used to say ‘there is something indescribable about the view through a round window’ and I would also recommend opening ones, which we used to do only rectangular, until we worked out that a round hole with a rectangular PVC opening bit was much easier and nicer etc
…and we like doing decorative details..it makes life interesting.
We decided a few years back that it was time to share our secrets with the world so we wrote ‘The Yurt Cover Sewing Course’ which reveals all tricks of our trade.
It is always a lovely moment when the cover is all packed in the bag, and ready to be picked up by our latest friendly courier. As we make our yurt covers at a distance, we don’t usually get to see them up, so it’s good when customers send us photos and feedback. We will always hear when something is wrong, but not always when things go right. It’s often a case of needing to hold the intent until we get the thumbs up.
Now, once again the wild Easter sewing rush has begun, so we have sharpened the scissors and got our thimbles out to be ready for the storm….
Our open fire yurt, based on a yurt of the Firuzkhui from northern Afghanistan, finally went to its rightful/leftful keeper. So we moved it to let it go on… The bottom picture shows the yurt in its new home and the one above it is a true yurt. *The word ‘yurt’ comes from a Turkic word which means […]
Our open fire yurt, based on a yurt of the Firuzkhui from northern Afghanistan, finally went to its rightful/leftful keeper. So we moved it to let it go on…
The bottom picture shows the yurt in its new home and the one above it is a true yurt. *The word ‘yurt’ comes from a Turkic word which means the imprint left on the ground by a moved ‘yurt’ (the round tent with vertical trellis walls and conical roof), and extends to meaning a person’s homeland. In modern Turkish the word “yurt” is used for a homeland or a dormitory. It has become used in many other languages as the tent-like dwelling which we all know and love.
Canvas roof and felt walls
Just the under clothes
A little lizard living on the felt under the canvas
Felt coming off
There is a bit of a nip in the air, the nights are drawing in and, as well as other things, we are sewing yurt felt linings: this time a big one for a 32′ yurt we made the canvas for earlier in the year. It is surprising how much difference a felt lining can make, both […]
inside with felt
There is a bit of a nip in the air, the nights are drawing in and, as well as other things, we are sewing yurt felt linings: this time a big one for a 32′ yurt we made the canvas for earlier in the year.
Felt like calculations
Felt like cutting the Roof
It is surprising how much difference a felt lining can make, both for coolness in the heat of summer and warmth in the freeze of winter. I only appreciated this when living in a yurt with a wool felt lining in a Hungarian winter where it got to -22 degrees C. There was still that moment of hesitancy before braving the distance between bed and stove, with the water frozen solid in the cup next to the bed. But yurts are easy to heat and once the stove was fired up, it was possible to sit naked for the morning cup of tea.
Felt lining on the open fire yurt. (The hole is for the stove chimney.)
It’s kind of funny that the 100% wool felt we use comes from Europe, and we are currently living in a part of Wales where there are about 48 sheep to every human. Wool wool all around. The sheep are mainly farmed for meat and wool is a by-product. Anyway, making enough felt for a yurt lining is a lot of work.
Welsh sheep
Traditional yurts, of course, have thick felt outer covers as, in the Central Asian countries where the yurts are used, there are extremes of cold and hot, but not wet. The felt’s natural oils and thickness are enough to keep the moisture out, but when the yurt came to the West, an outer waterproof layer was needed. The American yurts went mainly into vinyl, the European went into cotton canvas.
Kyrgyz Yurt
Felt is believed to be one of the earliest textiles and the traditional process is a huge task, usually done by the women of the group. The Mongolian method involves beating the wool first to clean it, then laying it out with the fibres parallel before rubbing water into it. It is then wrapped around a large pole and fastened securely and this pole dragged behind a horse or camel to bind the fibres together. Only then, when the felt is complete with no holes, is it cut into the shapes for the yurt cover, then sewn together by hand.
So if you want a felt lining for a yurt, let us know, and we can start shearing the 100 or so sheep we will need and harnessing the camels, before threading our sewing needles.
This chapter of the Tales of Yurt Power, is about the Two storey yurt which we built a few years back on the Canvas Chic campsite. We had been dreaming for awhile about the magnificence of the tent palaces of the Mughal Emperors and were designing our own…like a two-storey yurt… …a good place to […]
This chapter of the Tales of Yurt Power, is about the Two storey yurt which we built a few years back on the Canvas Chic campsite.
We had been dreaming for awhile about the magnificence of the tent palaces of the Mughal Emperors and were designing our own…like a two-storey yurt…
…a good place to begin this story is when I went to Canvas Chic in the Ardeche region of France to open the doors on all their yurt covers.
Canvas Chic was one of the original yurt campsites, in fact they probably coined the word ‘glamping’, and was situated in a beautiful green (Mediteranean) oak forest on the edge of the Ardeche gorge, with its magical prehistoric caves, rushing river and free roaming wild boar. (I say ‘was’ because not long after we were there, the owners sold the site and took the name ‘Canvas Chic’ with them, leaving their name ‘Milles Etoiles’ (a thousand stars) for the new owners).
Canvas Chic site
The ‘opening the doors’ task was so called because they had bought new wooden doors for all their 14 yurts, which were bigger than the old ones, so the canvas needed opening up at the doors.
Some time later, when we were on the road in our nomadic workshop, we were called to Canvas Chic to make a cover for their terrace, which evolved into to a Turkish Pole Tunnel Tent using bent chestnut rafters, going into an oak ridge pole.
Turkish tunnel tent
The next project somehow became the Two Storey Yurt (remember here that the truck was built with this in mind…)
But how to do it…? When we were wondering how to make the frame, we heard about a French yurt maker who had bought a few Kyrgyz yurt frames with the idea to make a yurt-related structure, but had decided to take his family on the road in a horse-drawn wagon, so was selling the components. We worked out that by cutting some of the roof rafters down, magically it was exactly what we needed for the two-storey yurt frame, and one other yurt (but that’s second story). The Kyrgyz make their frames from willow by hand, shaping the components with a toothed draw knife, which are then coloured with an orange-red dye.
Nomadic workshop and Kyrgyz Yurt frame
We weren’t so into a central pillar or an internal staircase as they would block the space, so the fixed deck for the top 20’ yurt sits on 8 pillars, with a side supports held by lots of metal. The rim of this deck then acts as a big wheel for the lower 30’ yurt. The staircase became an outside spirally one.
Deck in process
There was a willing group of volunteers who helped with the building process, which involved being transformed through the up cycling of an industrial stove for the metal of the deck (and conscious cooking).
Bottom yurt frame in place
Looking up from bottom yurt
We thought it was going to be quite a job to put the top yurt cover and frame up, but it ended up being relatively simple, by doing it inside-out instead of outside-in. (Those who have ever erected a yurt will know what I mean).
The two-storey yurt was finished in time for the first Yurt Makers Conference Gathering, where yurt makers and experts came from all over the world to play, vision and eat a lot.
Two Storey yurt complete
Our aim is to encourage more campsites to incorporate a tent palace at the centre to bring the people closer to a tribal feeling: the the true magic underlying the campsite experience, where a group of people come out of their separate lives, live in nomadic shelters and get a feel of the group mnd.
Our spring cover rush has come to a head this week, when we were called to increase the size of the yurt covers from one of the Yurtshire sites: all three yurts were to be extended from 16’6″ to 17′ diameter. The yurt covers we made were perfect but it turned out the frames were […]
Our spring cover rush has come to a head this week, when we were called to increase the size of the yurt covers from one of the Yurtshire sites: all three yurts were to be extended from 16’6″ to 17′ diameter. The yurt covers we made were perfect but it turned out the frames were erected too small when the measurements were taken (we make all our covers from measurements so we usually don’t see the frames), and now needed to grow some to allow for all the furniture. We took our Mercedes camper-Worksop truck, loaded with a sewing machine and all the equipment needed to do the job. And drove through the night to Umberslade farm, home of the lunar festival. 
The three yurts looked so perfect on arrival. 
I was wondering what the owner was thinking, I thought wow what a good job we did, as he was late we thought to ourselves maybe we can just tell him we fixed it when he gets there without doing anything. But being the nice elves we decided to start stretching the yurt covers using some Spirits Intent cover wizardry.
We were somewhat tired from not having slept properly, although driving through the night brought the nomads in us awake. So by the time the owner arrived with some extra covers from one of the other Yurtshire sites, it was getting very clear it is going to be a very long day. We had to get one of the yurts changed while the holiday makers were still using it. So that was the main challenge for lunchtime, they agreed to give us an hour to do so, with some extremely fast roof cover magic we got that done, and when they came back they said they did not even notice the difference (don’t know if we should see it as a compliment). 
It was now mid afternoon and we still had to open two yurt roofs, and extend the walls of both, the weather forcast was for heavy rain in the night, so leaving the yurts roofless was no option. We were sewing for all we were worth, and so when our friend Henry Dowell (fellow yurt maker) came to collect his 32ft cover, we were in stitches, not sure if it’s because we were so devastatingly tired, or that the jokes were actually funny. It was 21-00 pm and we realised we just did a 5 to 9 work day. Totally exhausted we went home into the truck to sleep, the last joke for the night was “it was a really hard day’s work (understatement) just to stretch those yurt covers a few cm”. It was near death by yurt making, we thought it was funny anyhow. In the middle of the night the rain came quite hard.. 
…so at 4 am one of us (not saying who) went out to put the chimney through the star cap. I guess we earned our breakfast. 
And so on departure the three yurts looked lovely (but not very much unlike when we arrived). Tom Sterne (the owner) was fun to work with, and we both agreed the yurts did look better, it was amazing how much difference that extra space did.
It’s that time, once again, when the people wake up from their winter hibernation, look at the daffodils and say, “Crikey it’s spring – better get moving”. For Spirits Intent, and our now sister, Wild Canvas, this means making yurts, tipis, Bushcraft tents and custom covers ready for the season. Much of our work is […]
It’s that time, once again, when the people wake up from their winter hibernation, look at the daffodils and say, “Crikey it’s spring – better get moving”.
For Spirits Intent, and our now sister, Wild Canvas, this means making yurts, tipis, Bushcraft tents and custom covers ready for the season. Much of our work is the sewing side of things, and many have already designed their campsites over the winter, but there’s always a few calls that go : “Hi, just dug my 2 yurt canvases out of the barn, and realise that they have holes in them, and it may rain this year, so we probably need new ones. I know it’s a bit late but is there any chance you can get them done by the end of the week?”
We like challenges and somehow it all happens.
The next delivery of canvas
Swimming in the P V sea. Camp cover for Wild Wise
Sand and Khaki Canvas Mountain
Yurt Canvas and Felt Peak going to Henry Dowell
2 more of those Wild Canvas Baker Tents – ready for the wilds
This is our latest afghan yurt, or the open fire yurt as we call it, seen here with a smoke flap type wheel cover, to allow for the open fire whilst ensuring the rain does not enter. It has taken us a few years to research our theories about the double bend yurts of North Afghanistan. The conclusions […]
Open Fire Yurt with smoke cowl
This is our latest afghan yurt, or the open fire yurt as we call it, seen here with a smoke flap type wheel cover, to allow for the open fire whilst ensuring the rain does not enter.
Opening the Door
Yurt Fire Side
It has taken us a few years to research our theories about the double bend yurts of North Afghanistan. The conclusions are not conclusive enough, but it seems the high wheel profile is definitely the way to make enough draw whilst allowing the wheel to be covered from the storms.
Due to the fact that our yurts are made from canvas, that can never “breath” as much as the felts of Asian yurts, there is still a lack of circulation like the type one gets from tipi linings.
But all in all it was fun sitting by the large fire sides, over the New Year, with the howling storms outside.
We later put our usual star cap cover on, and installed a wood burning stove so not to soot up the rafters and felt, so our open fire yurt is now called something else.
Stove exiting the double curved Yurt
You can see the double curves of the rafters here too.
The best looking Yurt in the West (and the East and the North……. and the South)
This is what it looks like now, out by the little stream.
It’s one of those things, that a week or so ago, I heard a thought to write a blog entry all about Bill Coperthwaite, but sadly, it has now turned into a eulogy as we just received the news that he died, when he drove his van into a rock, in his local town, Machiasport, Maine. […]
Bill Coperthwaite’s legendary hands
It’s one of those things, that a week or so ago, I heard a thought to write a blog entry all about Bill Coperthwaite, but sadly, it has now turned into a eulogy as we just received the news that he died, when he drove his van into a rock, in his local town, Machiasport, Maine.
Bill has come into our story a few times: the last time was last summer, when we were on the road in Austria in the early conceptional stage of the zome, the central structure of the Zodiac Tent. He was a man of action and the weather then was such that we couldn’t really work outside so much, so Bill went wooding a lot and carved a few spoons, in-between design discussions. One of his memorable pointers was about the redundancy of jogging, and other exercise routines when instead you can go out into the forest, gather wood, carry it home then chop it. And be warm.
In fact, Bill lived alone in the wilds of Maine, miles from the road, and when we last saw him, he said that he had gathered 5 years of wood. For anyone who knows about cooking on a fire and keeping the stove going, that is quite a woodpile. Never mind that Maine is under snow for maybe half the year. And he was then 82 years young.
Bill Coperthwaite’s yurt home
It is said that Bill was the father of the Western Yurt as in the 60’s he designed the tapered wall yurt, inspired by the native architecture of the Mongolian yurt, starting a whole movement. This picture above shows his home in Maine, one of his concentric yurts, tiled with cedar wood shingles, made completely in the wilds only with hand tools. My favourite story is of how the bottom layer came into being. It was originally just the top 3 layers, and Bill decided he needed a workshop so instead of building one somewhere else, he jacked the whole structure up, and built the workshop underneath.
He had many amazing stories, and was like a guardian of the old ways. Living where he did meant that he had no email or phone, thus avoiding the increasing speed of modern technology, and its associated chase of the false mind. His letters always somehow came in that magically timed moment, and he was my one remaining penfriend: making me remember to take the time to handwrite, the creativity in decorating the envelope and sticking on real stamps.
I never did see anyone master ‘witless knitting’ which was one of his best stalking acts involving a method of knitting with one wooden needle, which I think he learned from the Inuits. On his travels, he would sit somewhere quietly knitting, and people, (particularly women), would be pulled in with intrigue and then learn something new, while he made a connection to the local community.
Being hooked by witless knitting.
We first met Bill in 2009, when we invited him to be part of the first World Yurt Makers Conference Gathering which we organised in Canvas Chic, in the Ardeche region of France, and subsequently adopted him. When I picked him up at the airport he requested a coffee ice cream, which we later discovered is one of his quiet passions, (and is what led the boys to a folk craft museum in Austria, in another story). I said I would get him some ice cream in exchange for a song. When we got to the campsite, I took him to see the double storey yurt we had built. Now when most people saw it they would say ‘wow’, or ‘that must have been hard work’, or ‘how did you do that?’ Bill said, ‘Now you guys must have had some fun.”
I am grateful to have shared some of the story with him. He was a rare bird.