Staking The Mall

We’ve all seen them and even been inside them. Those large, sometimes dingy, temporary structures we know as canvas tents. And not the ones we use for camping trips. We’re talking about ones that tower three or more stores tall at the peak and that claim wind-resistance up to 60 mph. That’s right 60 miles per hour or only a few clicks away from tropical storm strength. 

I’ve not given a lot of thought to their strength until seeing someone climb up and around on the highly pitched roof affixing flag-toppers. No ropes, no ladders, no visible support; simply sliding and climbing from peak to peak to plant roof-top mini-flags. Not exactly something I’d do on the 7-ish foot tall weekender camping version in my garage. 

Standing 100 feet or so away from said flag-installer it was fairly evident the canvas had almost no give; nearly completely taut. In staking up my own tent I generally consider it a success if a couple leaf-filled twigs don’t cause its collapse; after all I’m generally only looking for a place to store my glasses, toothpaste and extra shorts for a couple nights. Nonetheless I was amazed that a 175 lb. man would freely slide his way three stories up around the rooftop of a stretched out piece of canvas. 

Not surprisingly two generally accepted support methods exist for securing industrial tent-tops such as these: weighted barrels or buried stakes. I’ve seen the barrel methods several times; most of us probably have. Large steel or wooden barrels that are typically filled with sand or water. Often water as it doesn’t need to be carried around with the supplies; set up the barrel, tie the rope around and run a hose. Instant gigantic paperweight. Unfortunately it turns out the barrel method requires more weight than might be imagined. Because the crates have a sliding bottom surface some of the weight is negated by the friction coefficient of plastic. Meaning a 55 gallon barrel filled with water and weighing more than 400 lb. possesses only 200 lb. of staying power. Terribly inefficient. 

However, pounding stakes requires powerful shoulders and forgiving earth. Actually special tools help alleviate the need for giant-sized shoulders; but it’s still a laborious process to drive a three inch diameter  stake into the ground. While you’ll see far more water filled barrels in Arizona and New Mexico you’ll see more staked tents in the Midwest. Upon closer inspection of a couple of the tents I retracted my initial hesitation about climbing around on the peaks and valleys of these temporary homes. After all, counting up all the art fairs, race packet-pickups, St. Patrick’s Day concerts and county fairs I’ve attended I have yet to bear witness to a single canvas roof collapse on top of me.