A water-tight and fireproof vessel is an extremely helpful resource for survival situations — even “Survivorman” Les Stroud lists it as one of his top 5 survival tools. A simple pot can help you cook food, collect wild edibles, and gather, boil, and purify water in the backcountry. Having one large vessel for water and smaller serving bowls for food adds even more versatility.
In his latest video, the silent Aussie bushcrafter behind Primitive Technology creates five small bowls and a large pot from natural clay. In previous videos, he used a furnace to create pottery, but this time he returned to making them over a simple open campfire. This is a technique you could easily try at home, assuming you can find a source of clay in nearby soil.
The finished pot was used to boil water above a campfire, with a lid to retain heat and water vapor. It works well for this purpose, but the host chose to find a way to boil water even faster — and do so from the comfort of the grass hut he built in the last video.
To create a dugout stove, a hole was dug into the dirt floor, and separated into an intake hole and a combustion chamber. A short chimney was added above the pit, with three elevated sections to hold the pot without stifling the flames. Fuel can be burned above the lower intake hole, and the fire will be drawn through the chimney to the pot. This design is similar to a modified Dakota fire pit, but partially above-ground instead of fully subterranean.
Check out the full video below to watch the pottery-making and dugout stove-building process:
