Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 4 : Spring 2010 | Page 18

and although privately owned, was kept unlocked for use by
scouts or anyone wanting to use it. Outside of bunks, stove,
sink and table, the place was virtually empty.

Sometimes after tramping the woods all day and
finding ourselves too far from the old camp, we would stay
at the unlocked cabin. There was a huge pine in front and it
was very soothing to listen to the wind whispering through
the pine needles or taking advantage of its shade on a hot
day. One of the nicest cold springs I have seen in the Maine
woods was located a short distance away. The water was blue
and ice cold. Two distinct memories remain after 60 years.

One memory was the skylight in the roof. On a
moonlit night one could rest in bed and watch the mice
run across the glass on the outside or the screen across the
window from the inside.

The other memory was when we arrived at the camp
very hungry for an unexpected overnight stay and we had
carried no food. There was an opened box of pancake mix
at the cabin. Nothing else. Pancakes with no syrup are great
when you are a hungry teenager. Oh, did I mention that we
strained the mouse droppings from the flour?

A cabin in the woods will offer sounds that stay with
you for years. A nut or spruce cone rolling down the roof
can wake one out of a sound sleep until you get accustomed
to the noise. A woodpecker rattling on a metal stove pipe at
four o’clock in the morning, wood borers chewing on new
logs. Their chewing sounds remarkably like the winding of an
old clock. Little piles of fine sawdust attest to their presence.
Coyotes after unsuspecting prey in the night. A porcupine
chewing on a camp log or rain on the roof, the cracking of
a wood fire in the heater stove, mice or weasel scampering
in the dark. Then there is the unmistakable sound of bacon
being fried or coffee perking or...just silence.

In 1948, when I was a junior in high school, a
couple of friends and I decided to build a log cabin. My
Dad arranged to lease a plot of land in the woods upon
which to build. As a crow flies, it was about three miles from
his old burned camp. There was an old woods road within a
half mile of our chosen site. This road was used only in the
winter when it was frozen solid. In the summer it was a wet,
boggy mess for the most part. We hired a firmer with a team
of horses and a high wagon. Now a high wagon is one with
large wheels and axles that keep the bed of the wagon higher
than a normal wagon. He hauled a stove, lumber, roofing
and the likes to the chosen site. I might add that he charged
us $10.00 for the days work with the team of horses.

My two friends and I decided to build the cabin with
the logs standing opposed to laying them down. This proved
to be the only way we could physically handle logs that we
cut seven feet long. Sixteen foot logs were too heavy for us
physically. We cut 100 fir logs seven feet long. Since the
cabin was to be built on a hardwood ridge, the fir trees had
to be carried between one hundred feet to several hundred
feet away from the site. We peeled the bark off each log and
carried them on our shoulders to our ridge location. Oh
yes, there were no chain saws then, the trees were cut with a
two-man cross cut saw.

A spring was nearby and we enjoyed the sweet, fresh
water it freely gave. In winter we “stored” canned goods
deep in the spring to keep the food from freezing as the
water never froze. Most waters in Maine freeze during the
16 The Log Cabin SPRING 2010

cold winters, but for whatever reason, this one did not. We
had some surprise meals however when the labels washed
off the stored cans.

The cabin was sold when I returned from a fouryear stint in the Air Force.

My next cabin was started on my father-in-law’s
farm. He owned over one hundred acres of land, most of
which was wooded. I had two brothers-in-law who helped
start the building. We lost interest in the project in the
summer when it was only a shell of a camp. It was not made
of logs, rather old lumber that we had scrounged. Not even
half finished, the project was soon abandoned.

The next camp was purchased by my son-in-law and
I at the lake where my Dad and Mother set up housekeeping
when they were first married. We decided to sell it a few
years later.

In 1976, serious talk of building yet another log
cabin in the back woods ensued between my son-in-law
and I. We built a 16 by 18 foot log structure. The sight was
leased and in the woods with no road or even a trail to it.
Beaver Brook and the Aroostook River were within a ten
minute walk. We both worked at regular jobs and did the
building on weekends, holidays or whenever we could find
time. We had to walk over two miles carrying everything
from lumber for the roof and floor to a heater stove. We
built it in one summer and fall thanks to plentiful help from
friends and relatives. Even my Dad did his share at the age
of 80.

Over the years we have added two more rooms and
enjoy the cabin year round. We can now drive to it except
in winter when we use snowshoes or snowmobiles.

We have kept a camp “log” where visitors register
and so far over 400 different individuals have visited our
cabin. They have come fro H\