Earthen homes in AK?

[karibear]

Originally Posted by Glitch

I have seen no evidence of what you claim. Except for novelty purposes, the only places where you will find traditional earthen homes are in areas were there is very little or no wood. Deserts, tundra, prairies, etc. Everywhere that wood is abundant, you will find wooden homes.

That's not entirely true. The old traditional style of homes in the Kodiak group and along much of the coast were semi-dugouts, called barabaras. They were dug in, had roofs that were mostly sod over driftwood or branches, had a double entrance, and were kept warm with seal oil lamps. And there are definitely trees on the north end of Kodiak, along with Spruce Island, Afognak Island, Whale Island, and the others. Actually, there are trees all over, but the north end has Sitka spruce, while the rest is mostly alder. But there was also plenty of driftwood as well, and rocks suitable for making oil lamps, anchors, and so on.

The current equivalent would be all the quonset huts left over from WW II, there are a lot of those that have been foamed and remodeled inside to a very high degree of comfort.

[Marty Van Diest]

When I mentioned the below ground home in Shageluk I failed to say that Shageluk is a forested area. I grew up in that area and know that most of the winter homes in that area of the Yukon/Innoko river areas were earthen homes. The Kashim, (meeting house), was also a below ground structure. A small portion extended above the ground.

They were not built into permafrost and did not become a muddy mess. They were warm and efficient. The log houses in the interior generally were a result of settlement by whites.

Here is a quote from this site,( athabascan indians),
showing that most Athabascan winter homes, (interior Alaska), were at least mostly below ground.

Winter camp was made up of several households, and although the exact house plan and building materials varied from area to area, the winter houses of many Athabascan groups were similar.

They were semi-subterranean structures made of a wood frame covered by birch or spruce bark, which was itself covered by moss, and topped with dirt. All that was visible of the houses from ground level were mounds of snow with smoke curling out of the centers.

The most obvious variations from this type of winter house appeared in the Cook Inlet Tanaina and Ingalik areas. Tanaina winter houses were also semi-subterranean, but they were larger than the interior Athabascan houses, and housed several families. The outsides of Tanaina houses were composed of wood boards chinked with moss between the boards and then thatched with grass, rather than the bark/moss/dirt combination adopted by most Athabascan bands. They were called "barabaras" by the Russians, and that name has since been adopted to identify Tanaina houses.

Ingalik homes were also semi-subterranean, though they were built on a model which closely resembled Eskimo winter houses more than the "typical" Athabascan model described above. Eskimo influence was also evident in that Ingalik villages contained kashims, or large men's houses, used as men's sleeping quarters and workrooms and as ceremonial centers.

The semi-subterranean house plan used by most Alaskan Native groups in winter is excellent for retaining heat, because there is little surface area through which heat can escape, and cold winds cannot penetrate the structure. In addition, the many layers of insulation used on Interior Athabascan winter houses kept the inside quite warm.

It does mention that the frame and interior was wood rather than dirt.

This is still a good idea today. But I think modern technology can improve on the overall design. One of the big problems is leakage. If they can learn to seal the houses better I think it will become a more popular design.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Glitch

You also might want to look into what the conditions were like, and the average life-expentency, of those who lived in earthen homes. In Anaktuvuk Pass, you wouldn't want to get the eathern home too warm, or will you find yourself living in a mud pit. But before the white man showed up in Alaska, that wasn't a problem. They had nothing to burn in Anaktuvuk Pass because there was no wood.

The reason the life expectancy was short, is because of the lifestyle being hard, bears and disease, not because of the earthen homes. Anaktuvuk pass is mostly a gravel base a foot or two down under the tundra and a earthen homes worked very well there. There is brush to use for heat, and there is a natural bounty of game when migration of the Caribou and birds came though the pass twice a year, you can almost hit everything with a rock and eat well.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by Glitch

I have seen no evidence of what you claim. Except for novelty purposes, the only places where you will find traditional earthen homes are in areas were there is very little or no wood. Deserts, tundra, prairies, etc. Everywhere that wood is abundant, you will find wooden homes.

The entire length of the Kuskokwim River, except for about the last 50 miles, traditionally was forested... and sod homes were typically used everywhere. There of course was wood used to support much of the structure, and for interior walls and floors. That was also used in areas where there were no trees (driftwood commonly being used).

Ann Fienup-Riordan, in "Eskimo Essays" described it thusly,

"... the spring floods of the mighty Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers
supplied them with an abundance of driftwood, which they
traditionally used to build semisubterranean, sod-insulated log
houses that were both substantial and warm."

Here is a description of the founding of Telida, on the upper Kuskokwim, where a group of women built a sod house.

www.AKNextGeneration.org • Educational Resources

I assume it was the same elsewhere in Alaska.

This is a view of Anaktuvuk Pass in 1963,

Alaska's Digital Archives : Item Viewer

This is the outside of a sod hut up closer,

Alaska's Digital Archives : Item Viewer

This is what the inside of a sod home in Anaktuvuk Pass looked like in 1962,

Alaska's Digital Archives : Item Viewer

(Sorry about those being links and not images, but the site they
are on has gone to extreme lengths to prevent linking to them.)

You also might want to look into what the conditions were like, and the average life-expentency, of those who lived in earthen homes.

And look also at the life expectancy of Westerners who came to Alaska. Beginning in 1742 the Russians explored Alaska for commercial purposes. During the remaining part of that century Russian commercial expeditions to Alaska lasted for 2 to 3 years, and the survival rate literally was 33%. At one point the Tzar commissioned a study to determine the cause of the low survival, and it was determined that poor provisions were the cause. When the cost of improving the survival rate was totaled, Moscow declined to fund it.

It is very hard to support claims that Western culture at any point improved on the health of Native Alaskans. We brought diseases, we brought poor construction techniques, poor clothing styles, poor education systems, and the power to enforce their use. But as the immigrants began to pick up Native sciences it was their life expectancy that improved.

Modern medicine of course is a world wide phenomena that cannot be attributed to Western society alone. And that has definitely improved life expectancy in the Arctic, for all Arctic dwellers. It has been slower to come to Bush Alaska than many other places simply because funding in the US is not controlled by Arctic dwellers nor by Natives, and those who do control it feel no need to reduce the infant mortality rates in Bush Alaska, for example. (The Indian Health Service is currently funded at about 59% of need.)

In Anaktuvuk Pass, you wouldn't want to get the eathern home too warm, or will you find yourself living in a mud pit.

A properly constructed sod house does not melt into a "mud pit".

But before the white man showed up in Alaska, that wasn't a problem. They had nothing to burn in Anaktuvuk Pass because there was no wood.

You've never heard of coal or of seal oil or of whale oil? Those houses were not unheated.

Permafrost + Earthen Home + Heating Oil = A Muddy Mess.

The sod around the houses is dry. So is the earth directly beneath them. There is nothing to melt. (On the other hand, sod homes built close to rivers were commonly flooded during breakup, when the people would normally be away at spring camp. That did leave a mess.)

The typical men's house in southwestern Alaska, which would be a rather large sod insolated structure, had a fire pit in the center, and could be heated enough to be excessively warm. When they had dances, they shutdown the fire because it would get too warm to be comfortable. They'd put floor boards over the fire pit, to give more room. (Young people would wear only a seal gut rain coat, because it was too warm when dancing and working up a sweat. Heh heh, and you thought a "wet T-shirt contest" was something new, eh?)

There is a very good reason why people who build homes in areas of permafrost build them on posts.

Well, sure... if you use a wood frame construction made of 2x4's or 2x6's, and you have the ability to drill huge holes into the permafrost. But that has not always been possible, and even today it is not always the best (such construction will not support significant weight, for example).

If you want a very low energy home, building on pilings is not recommended. It only works if you have very cheap fuel (oil or natural gas, for example). But heating a building with a only a seal oil lamp is also quite feasible... if you use about 18-24 inches of sod to insulate it, and have half of it underground.

[warptman]

Here's a sod house everyone calls the "mud house" up the Kwethluk River, this has been there for many years, it was used as a fishcamp house. It's abandoned now.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by warptman

Here's a sod house everyone calls the "mud house" up the Kwethluk River, this has been there for many years, it was used as a fishcamp house. It's abandoned now.

That must be underwater every spring when the ice goes out!

I'm betting the reason it has been abandoned is that the river channels have changed enough to make that camp less useful for fishing than it once was???

[warptman]

I don't think the water gets that high at spring time. It is right near the main Kwethluk River up a little slough. The ice melts faster in this tributary of the Kuskokwim each spring. I'm not sure why they don't use it anymore, the owner probably died and the kids didn't bother keeping it in a good shape. A few years back some kids set fire to the brush nearby and the fire was a few acres around this place, you can see the burned out limbs around the house, it used to be in the trees.

[JavaPhil]

I was up in Anaktuvik and BIA and BLM were talking about building some sod built homes (as opposed to the frame construction prevalent there now). Definitely more suited to the environment.

[ESKIMO~GAL]

I HAVE LIVED in anaktuvuk pass and they have houses that can stand -50 to -60 blow weather.it is wonderful how they made them backin 1970's.they still are standing and they all seem to be still in good shape!even in the coldest weathers..and there is a guy woh lived in a sodhouse way even before i was born!he just recently moved but it is sill there.and in good shape!and that is funny whatyou all have said eesp, about the mud pit stuff...

[Jerseykat]

I've always liked this house I came across on the net.
It's in Maryland but it does have the geothermal, earth-berming and passive solar going.
The people that built it put this site up which explains how the house works.
Kinda kewl and apparently it does work like it's supposed to...efficiently.

http://www.ourcoolhouse.com/