How to Set up a Trooper Tent by Maeve Kane

Contents Introduction and Bylaws Interpretive Clothing Scottish Culture History Music and Dance Military Life Language Bibliography, Sources and Library Materials

Clann Tartan owns several very similar A-frame trooper tents that members may request to use if for whatever reason they don't wish to set up a tent of their own at an event.  Although setting up a tent isn't a muster requirement, it should be, as it is a useful skill to have. To begin with, you'll need two uprights, a ridge pole, and some canvas.  The staff member that checks the tent out to you should give you the right canvas, or, if you're setting up at an event, staff should be able to tell you what piece of canvas coming off the trailer is a trooper tent. The uprights and ridge poles are fairly interchangeable; just make sure you've got a complete set.  Some sets are made of two by four lumber, as pictured on the left, and should go together with a two by four ridge pole.  Other sets are made of octagonal stock that fits together with a metal coupler in the middle, so you'll actually receive four short upright pieces and two short ridge pole pices that will fit together to make a complete set. To begin with, find the doors of your tent and tie them shut.  Some troopers have one door and others have two--if you've got a tent with only one door, make sure that it's pointing the way you want. You don't want your only front door to open onto a garbage bin or tree. Once your doors are tied shut, get some stakes. Clann owns lots and lots and lots of stakes.  Some are one foot long and some are two feet long.  Unless the wind is going to be extremely bad (25 mph and up) or the ground is extremely soggy, you'll only need the one foot long variety.  Four are absolutely necessary for the corners, six are good if you want to stake down the middle of your tent for added security, and ten (one for each loop given) are excessive unless the weather's bad. Now that your doors are tied shut and you have your stakes, stake down each of the four corners and the middle loops if you feel like it, making sure that you pull the opposite corners reasonably tight but not to the point that it strains the door ties.  The door being shut at this point is what makes sure that it will shut once your tent is standing, but you also wants to make sure your tent isn't saggy.  If the ground is soft enough, you can use a pair of hard-soled shoes to ease the tent stake in or a hammer if the ground is a little less forgiving. Now that your tent is staked down, untie all the door ties. All of the trooper tents have nice little pockets at the apex of the tent for the ridge pole to be seated in.  With an octagonal pole set, make sure that both of the little holes at the ends of the ridge pole are vertical before putting it in the tent.  Whichever pole set you use, make sure that the holes are vertical while putting the ridge pole in the apex of the tent. As soon as the ridge pole is seated, you can put in the ridge poles, as pictured above.  Each ridge pole has a large metal rod sticking out of the top end.  This rod needs to go throught the ridge pole and the eyelet in the canvas at the top of the tent.  On a tent with a door at each end, this set up is easy--just have one person at each end wrestle their upright into the ridge pole and set them down when done.  On a tent with only one door, it's not as easy.  You'll have to get the upright at the open end in first while a friend goes inside the tend and seats the other upright from the inside.  Sometimes it's helpful to have one friend support the ridge pole from the inside while another guides the rod on the upright from the inside and another guides it from the outside.  Meanwhile, you support your upright and look good while everyone else does the hard work. Once your uprights are in, your tent should be free standing, and you're ready to move in or move on to setting up the next tent.  If you do set up more than one tent or set up your tent to one that is already standing, try to space them so that there is very little green space between them--members of the public are less tempted to go strolling between tents if they are very close together.