The Mors Kochanski Super Shelter: when bushcraft, inventiveness and physics combine

Introduction

In the world of bushcraft and wilderness survival, some ideas are so simple yet effective that they become very well-known throughout the world. The Super Shelter, pioneered and popularized by the late Canadian survival instructor Mors Kochanski, is one of those ideas.

At first glance, it looks deceptively simple - a sheet of plastic, a reflective blanket, and a small fire. Yet when assembled correctly, it can provide warmth and comfort in temperatures where ordinary tents or tarps fail. The super shelter embodies Kochanski’s core philosophy:

“The more you know, the less you carry.”

This shelter style was first introduced to me on the Northern Forest Year, yearl-ong course by my first Woodland Ways Instructor Davie McCrae who went on to become a leading mentor of mine during my journey to becoming an instructor so it was a bit special for me to be able to go on and teach it to students on our multi award winning Woodland Wayer two year-long personal development course as part of my teaching journey.

In this blog, we’ll explore the concept and history of the super shelter, its design, the science that makes it work, its inspiration from a misunderstood shelter lesson which grew to incorporate science from both the igloo, the green house, and thermodynamics and how it can be used in both the northern boreal and with a few adaptations in the UK.

Origins and Concept

Mors Kochanski spent decades teaching survival in the cold forests of Canada, where winter temperatures often plummet to –30°C or lower. In such conditions, insulation alone often isn’t enough. A person must find ways to harness external heat sources — usually fire — in a way that maximizes their effect and his super shelter is an excellent example of this.

I've read that It was during a shelter lesson with a group of young people that Mors had his initial brain wave that led to the formation of the idea, he had instructed the young people to build an open dome shaped sapling shelter and use a sheet of polyethylene plastic as a roof to make it waterproof then build a fire in front to keep warm. He hadn't expected them to cover the whole dome with the plastic and as he came back to inspect the work he noticed the plastic sheet billowing upwards as it released trapped heat energy from the fire (more on tapped heat later).

Kochanski experimented with ways to maximize and contain the energy produced by a fire into a source of lasting warmth and comfort. His solution was elegantly simple:

• Use clear plastic to let radiant heat inside while blocking wind.
• Add a reflective wall to trap that heat and bounce it back.
• Position the shelter close to the fire to benefit from every possible calorie of energy.

The result was a shelter that could transform a freezing night into something almost homely.

Design and Construction

The super shelter is built on three principles: transparency, reflection, and insulation.

1. The Transparent Wall
   1. Constructed from clear polyethylene sheeting.
   2. Stretched over a simple frame of poles or rope.
   3. Functions like a greenhouse window: it allows radiant heat from the fire to pass through but prevents wind from robbing you of warmth.
2. The Reflective Barrier
   1. A Mylar “space blanket” or reflective tarp is placed at the back of the shelter.
   2. This acts like a mirror, sending the fire’s heat back toward the occupant.
   3. Without it, much of the energy would be wasted heating the air or escaping backwards.
3. Ground Insulation
   1. A raised bed built of logs is great but you could also use a thick mattress of spruce boughs, grasses, bracken, or a modern sleeping mat.
   2. Prevents conductive heat loss to the frozen or damp ground which considering heat is lost around 4x faster from conduction than convection, makes a huge difference in sleeping warm.
4. The Fire
   1. Built directly in front of the shelter, usually one metre away.
   2. Its radiant heat streams into the shelter, where it is trapped and reflected.
   3. My preferred fire style for this shelter and what is recommended by Mors is a parallel long log fire the length of your body as it spreads heat from your head to your toes

The shelter is often a parabolic arc as this is the most efficient in terms of bouncing contained IR energy around but it can also be modified into a simple lean-to or A-frame but its geometry matters less than the combination of fire + plastic + reflection, which multiplies the effectiveness of heat.

The Science of Warmth
The Greenhouse Effect
Clear plastic acts much like glass in a greenhouse. Radiant heat from the fire passes through easily, but warm air is trapped inside. This creates a microclimate that can be dramatically warmer than the outside environment.

The Inverse Square Law
Mors frequently taught about the inverse square law of radiation: the intensity of heat diminishes rapidly with distance.

• At 1 meter from the fire, you receive the full blast.
• At 2 meters, you feel only a quarter of that.
• At 3 meters, just one-ninth.

This explains why sitting by a fire keeps your front hot while your back freezes. The super shelter bends this law in your favour; it traps and reflects that radiant energy, so instead of vanishing into the forest night, it bounces around you.

Lessons from the Igloo
The super shelter owes much to the igloo. Inuit builders understood that combining insulation and reflection could make snow houses warm enough to survive Arctic nights. A small oil lamp or body heat was enough to raise the temperature above freezing and Mors had experience of this technology that he called on when coming up with his concept.

Kochanski applied the same principle with modern materials: plastic replaces snow as the insulating wall, and Mylar takes the place of reflective ice surfaces. Both shelters prove that survival is less about brute strength and more about intelligent use of physics.

Step-by-Step: Building a Super Shelter

1. Choose the Site: do all the usual checks, look up, look down and look around check for hazards in the environment around you
2. Build your bed, now this is where myself and some others differ, some people build their shelter frame first then try to build a bed in the confined space of a shelter, I much prefer knocking up a quick raised bed frame and using that as a size guide to build my frame
   
3. Build your frame: we built this as a group using lots of self-seeded birch saplings starting with two long poles spiked into the ground one either side of the front of your bed, these are then woven together to form a large half hoop, we then added more saplings spiked into the ground in an arc at the back of the shelter and bent them forward to meet our first hoop, we then added more saplings both horizontally and vertically until we had created a structurally sound dome, we were doing this in the midlands of England so could use dethorned bramble as natural lashing material but in the boreal spruce root would be perfect although paracord is also a very useful and easy to carry option that saves a lot of time and effort
4. Add Reflection: Attach a Mylar blanket inside at the rear wall. We decided to reinforce our mylar with duct tape to prevent it tearing too easily which can be an issue we then poked holes through the taped sections of blanket to tie it to the inside of the frame
5. Add your polyethylene sheeting, we covered the front and top of the shelter with the sheet we then used a mixture of tarps and natural thatch to cover the rear of the shelter as these were the resources available but they are also a slightly better option for the wet winters of the UK than the boreal option of moisture permeable parachute material which in the dry cold of the boreal winter where rain isn't an issue allows moisture vapor to escape from the inside to a certain extent
6. Build the Fire: Position a fire directly in front, keeping flames about 1 meter away from the plastic again my preference for a true winter fire is the long log fire which I've spent the night beside many a time and it seldom lets me down, I have tried self-feeding fires for this task but always found them fiddly and a bit of a pain to keep burning. We used a small fire in this case to demonstrate the principle but I'm sure you get the idea from the pictures
7. Settle In: Sit or lie down - the radiant warmth will surprise you; I'll be honest in the UK I have generally found this shelter style a bit warm for my liking but it's a great principle to know and understand
   

Suitability for the UK
The UK may not suffer Canadian winters, but damp cold can be just as dangerous. The super shelter adapts well, with some considerations:

• Condensation: In the UK’s humid climate, moisture can build up quickly. Ventilation gaps at the ends of the shelter help reduce this but it's a fine line between retaining heat and maintaining breathability
• Rainfall: Plastic sheeting must be taut and sloped to shed water effectively. A second tarp or natural covering (like bracken) can act as a rain shield.
• Abundant Woodland: UK forests provide excellent materials for bedding and structural poles although be mindful of local laws when using using land in the UK for any sort of bushcraft activity's
• Temperature Range: In milder winters, the super shelter can even feel too warm, but this is a luxury problem compared to hypothermia.

For bushcraft enthusiasts, it is not just an emergency measure but also a practical way to experience traditional survival skills in a safe environment.

Strengths and Limitations
Strengths

• Incredibly warm in sub-zero conditions.
• Lightweight materials: plastic sheeting and a space blanket pack smaller than most tents.
• Simple to build with basic bushcraft skills.
• A powerful teaching tool for demonstrating survival principles.

Limitations

• Dependent on a fire, which may be impractical in some environments.
• Plastic can melt if the fire is too close.
• Less durable than a tent in strong winds without careful setup.
• Requires constant fuel for the fire - meaning a good wood supply is essential.
  

Conclusion
The Mors Kochanski Super Shelter is more than just a survival trick - it is a lesson in how knowledge can transform scraps of material into life-saving warmth. It draws on physics, tradition, and practical ingenuity to create a shelter that punches far above its weight.

For those exploring survival skills in the UK, it offers not only a safety net but also a hands-on way to connect with the principles that guided indigenous peoples and modern instructors alike.

When the night grows cold and the fire burns low, the super shelter proves Mors’ enduring truth: knowledge weighs nothing, but it can keep you alive.

For hands-on experience with this incredible shelter style and others as well as a whole host of winter skills why not look into our Woodland Ways Winter Skills Course run in our East Lothian, Derbyshire and Oxfordshire sites.