Canada Border patrol building

Watching the Suburban and “Tank Trailer” travel down the 4-wheel track to the portage head.  Note the sports canoe on top the Suburban.  This rocky section is littered by old tires and other relics of vehicle problems.

Watching the Suburban and “Tank Trailer” travel down the 4-wheel track to the portage head.  Note the sports canoe on top the Suburban.  This rocky section is littered by old tires and other relics of vehicle problems.

The 18’ Lund canoe is carried on top of the “Tank Trailer’.

This was a typical trip to the island.  After portaging and retrieving boats, we had a late afternoon start across the lake and of course, we are heavily loaded

Looking ahead on the Wathaman River, things looked normal.  Ice piled on the upstream side of points and islands had not yet appeared to warn us of  bad ice ahead.  Even after we started seeing the occasional ice piles on shore, their significance did not dawn on us.

About 11:30 PM we ran into a dark line across the lake.  It turned out to be ICE.  We had to turn around and go back a mile to what we names “ICE ISLAND” and make the best camp we could.  We had not planned on this turn of events because the Conservation Officers Don called the week earlier said that the ice was all gone.

Black ice is very dangerous to walk on and the native people have learned to stay off it during these conditions.  The ice was receding about one mile per day.  The temperature got up into the high 80’s but when you motored up alongside the ice, the temperature was in the 40’s.

This is black ice.  Actually, black ice only appears to be black because it is a reflection off the bottom of the lake.  When picked up like this, it is as clean as the water it is made of.

This well organized pantry is quit opposite the conditions we had for the 5 days we were forced to camp on Ice Island.  We had no silverware so we made spoons from tin can lids.  Jerome got soaked one night on the island when after drying out all his clothes by the fire when the rain tarp came down and dumped all the water that had pooled there onto Jerome and his newly dried clothing.

Jerome is a good cook.  Here he is frying up some fish.  You really appreciate flat surfaces, a full set of cooking implements, silverware , organized supplies, a waterproof roof that doesn’t fall down and a place to sit down, especially after a few days of unplanned camping.

Lake water can be consumed without adverse affects but we filter the drinking water as a precaution, especially if the filtering can be done easily.  Martin is using a back-packer hand filter pump.  These little pumps are OK for small quantities of water but we all got blisters trying to fill our 5-gallon water cooler.  This led to a Don building a 12volt battery operated filter pump.  The pitcher pump was very handy for getting lake water into the cook tent, even though we once pumped out a live minnow.

The saw has been well used.  The red tank on the right is used to hold water that is dripped down onto the blade as a lubricant.

We built a tool shed adjacent to the cabin to hold our tools and supplies and it served us well for several years.

Martin caught a walleye that we probably kept for supper.

This is a seldom-caught white fish.  When we first encountered this species on the Churchill River, many years earlier, we never landed one and dubbed them the “Mystery Fish”.  We will catch maybe one a year now.  They are good fighters and not too bad to eat.

This shows the rapids to the right side of the main rapids at high water.  This rapids will frequently be dried up and provide an interesting route to hike to the “Interim Lake”.

This rock formation is located in Northern Bay.  Martin and Jerome decided it would be fun to jump off the top.  And the water was only 4 feet deep.

Even though the water was only 4 feet deep, no one was hurt in this exercise.

This bridge has been replaced with a larger load capacity one.  The mines up north wanted to carry heavier loads in new 34 wheel trucks.  Fortunately, the new bigger trucks are being driven at very sensible speeds versus the breakneck speeds of the old trucks.

Jim bought his new tent along.  Before we moved into the cabin several years hence, we always slept in tents located at various sites that evolved around the cook tent.

This is the reason we are here.  This is the perfect eating size.

The honey hole produces many doubles and even triples at times.  Don once caught fish on 38 straight casts without a miss.

Let's see, Matt is on the right and the mouse is on the left.  If this looks like a well-fed mouse, it is.  The one problem with the cook shack we never solved was how to control the mice when there were so many places a mouse could enter the structure.  Trapping helped but not for long.

This is what the beams and joist looked like before we stared to construct the floor.  The large effort to complete the floor convinced Don to haul in commercial press-board for the roof and sub-walls.

Dave always manages to be the one to carry the big stuff.

Most trees were too small to yield much lumber when sawed so we conserved the lumber we did cut by standardizing on widths in increments of 1/8 inch.  This made laying the floor a significant task to match up all the various widths for the full length of the cabin floor.

The amount of work to saw the flooring was a surprise to Don.  After ripping the raw logs, they had to be thickness planes to 1 ¼ inch thick and then ripped to a standard width.  Installing the floor was actually the easiest part of the job.

The floor joist were covered with tarpaper to provide a waterproof seal, especially for the anticipated long time of exposure to the elements prior to getting a roof in place.

We soon were unable to screw the deck screws we were using because the Phillips drivers got stripped.  This actually turned out to be helpful.  Screwing the screws would split the boards if near the end of the board, while driving the screws with a hammer, like a nail, would not split the boards.

The finished floor did look nice when it was finished.  Having a large flat surface on which to walk and work was a pleasant change.  Don had several near catastrophic falls when there were only joist to walk on.

Rainsqualls were a constant problem, requiring us to cover up the work area several times some days.  Without a roof, you are at the mercy of the weather.

Don taps the first wall into position.  A block and tackle (rope) can be seen behind the wall.  We tried lifting the wall by arm-power but the three of us (Don, Martin and Jerome) were unable to get it up to a vertical position.  Don broke out the block and tackle, which Martin and Jerome had never seen before.  They were not convinced it would help, especially since it took some time to get it rigged.  They were quickly convinced once they saw how easily the wall responded to the mechanical advantage developed by the blocks.  Don’s Navy experience saved the day.

Martin works at assembling the wall.   The rear wall was built in two large sections.  Jay and Sabra had arrived, so we had more muscle power to raise a large wall section and only 2 x 4s were used instead of the logs in the front wall.

My favorite picture.  When this wall was up, it provided a real moral boost because it provided such a dramatic increase in our visualization of what we were all working toward.

The flat cut on the rafters made several years earlier were now twisted, caused by the log twisting as it dried.  The logs should have been cut just prior to use but Don didn’t know this at the time.  In order to eliminate the propeller shaped surface, Don made parallel chalk lines to guide the chain saw trimming he did.  The lack of knowledge created a lot of extra work on several occasions.  While this seems very crude, it was possible to get a very accurate and smooth surface with this technique.  It just took up precious time to accomplish. Note that the far end of the log is level while the near end is tilted a considerable amount. The longer the log the greater the twist.

This is the largest ceiling joist we installed.  The bolts held together a lap joint.  The largest logs we cut were saved for the loft joist.  Mixing logs and dimension lumber in construction can yield good results but it sure takes extra time.  Log construction especially, results in every joint being a custom job.  The chain saw was invaluable in this endeavor.

Jay takes a drink while Martin lifts a joist into place.  The nice flat work surface was quickly covered with wood storage, making it again a challenge to walk around.  Getting the ridgepole into position was a huge effort.  There was no sky crane to whisk it to the peak of the walls.  We moved it slowly one lend at a time up through several levels of temporary support.  The ridgepole was the largest log we found in all our logging efforts.  It was found about 30 feet from the cabin. 

The Ridgepole may not have gotten put in place if there had been any one of us missing from the crew.  .  Jay is wearing his duct tape repaired hat.

Sabra lifts mightily on the ridge pole to move it to the next level.

Martin steadies the ridge pole as it is secured in place.

Sabra checks out the strength of the log.  It did hold her just fine.

Don needs a ladder but always tries to avoid one.  He was lucky not to fall.

The perlin leaning at an angle proved to be a few inches too short and had to be replaced. This problem developed when Don found the freezer doors used as cabin windows in a junkyard.  They were 1” wider than what had been planned.  Don adjusted the plan to accommodate the wider windows and because there were 18 windows in the front, it forced the cabin to be 2’ longer and the deck 2’ shorter.  This happened after we had sawed all the major timbers.  Fortunately, there was enough “spare” length in the ridgepole and one of the perlins. Getting a new perlin was done the day after Jay and Sabra left.  Don and Martin found a suitable replacement perlin on “Cedar Island” 5 miles away.  The downed tree, after being “limbed” was still so heavy we could only move it toward the lake a foot at a time.  We towed it back to the island and manhandled it up by the saw so we could remove the bark and smooth off all the knots. Then we moved it back into the water and floated it closer to the cabin.  It was “aimed” straight at the cabin and we pulled it up to the cabin using the block and tackle.  Even though the log was much lighter, having had the bark removed, Martin and I alone did not have the strength to move it UP the hill.  This was a very slow process since the block and tackle would require a new “snatch” being set up with the ropes every 5 feet or so.  Finally it was in the cabin and we manhandled it into place using every trick possible.  We slept very soundly that night.

Martin celebrated getting the ridgepole in place.  His attempt to walk across it like a tight rope was abandoned after he got a ways out on the log and "froze" after he realized his real height.

Jay strikes a mature pose.  He and Sabra left the island the following day.

Would you want to meet this guy in a dark alley?  Well, you would if you wanted to be with someone who could handle any hood you might encounter.  This guy is STRONG.

The framing crew is pleased with their progress.

Sabra is checking out the permafrost cooler we constructed this summer.

Don had a hard time deciding when to take down the many braces seen here.  They gave a great deal of rigidity to the structure which he liked but they were sure a pain to walk around.

A spectacular view from the roof.  This view is in great conflict with Don’s desire to have the cabin not be readily seen from the far end of the lake.  Certainly, this is what the view would be from the cabin if the trees were thinning in front of the cabin.  The irregular height of the rafters was trimmed with a chain saw the next year.

At this stage of construction, we became aware of a very eerie noise that sounded just like someone talking.  If you put your ear to any of the logs, you would swear some one was talking but you could not quite make out what they were saying.  It took a while to convince ourselves that this was something being created by the wind, which of course was the only logical explanation.

Jay is bundled up to cross the lake.  His presence almost guarantees rain for the trip.

Don and Martin took a couple days to explore up one of the rivers flowing into “MY Lake”.  This is on the way to our objective and shows how jammed up the little stream became.  We carried very little gear and retraced our route to our camp after reaching our objective lake since we were not prepared for camping.  It was a very tough trip.

What can you say, words can’t add anything to this sunset.

Camping and construction buddies get together back in Boulder after the end of the season.