38th / 40th Cork CSI

Resources > Tent Pitching

Types of Tents

There is a huge variety of tents available and used by Scouts today. The most common scout tent has been the traditional green canvas "Icelandic" tent. These tents are normally used for weekend and summer camps but because of their size and weight are not suited to hiking activities. It is still however one of the most popular tents.

Click on the above drawing of the icelandic tents for a bigger picture. Enlarge Drawing >

Parts of an Icelandic Tents

The main parts of an icladanic tent when you unpack it are the canvass for the tent, the poles of which there are 10. There are 2 main guy lines and at least 2 different sizes of wooden tent pegs and a ground sheet.

The canvas is in one part which consists of the roof and walls and doors. There are also guy lines attached to the conners and sides of the tent.

Click on the drawing above which identify the different parts of the tent. Enlarge Drawing >

Putting up a Tent

When pitching an iceland tent you should open the canvas straight out with the inside faced out. The next step is to fix the tent poles. 3 legs each with a spike are put into hole in the 4 roof poles. When this is done one side of the tent is folded over the other as in picture 2 below. The main guy line are attached to the spike on either end and the tent is raised and kept standing by the main guys.

The next step is to tie up the doors and then peg down the 2 guys on each conner. The rest of the guys are then pegged down. The final part to get pegged in are the walls and doors. The ground sheet can then be laid out inside the tent.

(Some tents also have a seperate flysheet to be placed over the tent and this alos needs to be pegged down similar to he main tent.