The Big Build — Season 1, Episode 3: The Fort
Documentary • 46 min • 1 season, 5 episodes • ★ 7.0/10
Episode synopsis
Lewis and Clark, racing Oregon's winter chill, built the 50 foot square Fort Clatsop, a double structure shelter with seven rooms, a sentry box, and a parade ground, in just 15 days. THE BIG BUILD's version is scaled down, but so is the timetable. Working in a dense patch of Kansas woodlands, John McPherson, a specialist in log structures, directs the team as they dig fire pits, raise raw wood walls, and fashion doors from rawhide. The end result may not be pretty, but it would keep the winter at bay.
About The Big Build
What does it take to construct a Viking longboat or a stone tower like those that dotted the landscape of Medieval Europe? THE BIG BUILD looks to the past for challenges and tackles the ultimate “how to” projects. Host and contractor Nick Mystrom enlists experts from some of construction’s most esoteric fields as he puts his hands on history.