We outfitted the place with stuff from the Mayflower, where the stash could furnish the little cabin and a few others. Over the long holiday weekend, we fished, played cribbage, swam, hiked, paddled around, and sat in front of smoky campfires until our kisses tasted like Slim Jims. In one shades-of-The-African-Queen moment after an evening skinny dip, Jon pulled little leeches off me, and we fell in love.
Wonderful. Really great, in fact. But would Jon take to the land as he took to me, or would he come to see the place as a weekend maintenance albatross? I couldn’t expect him to feel as welded onto the place as I was. Would he share some sort of stewardship along with me, or at least humor me in my endeavor? I can’t say that if I were in his shoes I’d have been totally thrilled if my new love came glued to a lifelong, high-maintenance project with soaring property taxes. Everywhere you looked, something needed doing or fixing: brush burned, stumps grubbed, paths cleared, trees cut, etc. I saw how it could be overwhelming. A future with me must’ve looked like a lot of work, weekends spent in work boots and flannel shirts, predetermined and predictable. Would this place wind up being fifty acres of ball and chain?
The building project we eventually tackled together was to design and construct windows for the little fish house, which we decided should become a sleeping cabin, so much more comfortable than climbing in and out of the tiny loft in the main cabin, where just making the bed involved a whacked funny bone at best and a contusion at worst.
Making custom windows was no easy task given that every opening Rory had framed was slightly off (like him), each measuring a markedly different size from the next. The project became a challenge of patience and math skills, traits I do not possess. I bought panels of a polycarbonate channeled plastic, the kind newer greenhouses are clad in, much lighter weight than glass, unbreakable, and, as it turns out, bear proof. The downside, which I now see as an upside, is that while light comes through, sharp details don’t, just shapes and colors, an impressionist’s view.
In my landlord’s well-lit, dry basement back home, we fired up the table saw, and over the course of several weekends, Jon chewed a pencil and measured and cut, humming while I held things or tidied up. Even in the city, I was guilty of recruiting my boyfriend like a Habitat volunteer when we might have gone to a gallery opening or to hear a band or maybe lazed around Sunday mornings with the crossword and coffee. I swept sawdust and plastic dust and nodded encouragement. When one of the plastic panels skidded over the running table-saw blade and was badly scratched, we laughed it off, joking that at least there would be one visible flaw in our otherwise perfect collaboration. With the help of excessive weather stripping, the finished windows fit well enough, opening outward and up to hook to the eaves to save precious room inside. They also act as broad awnings, so if one is left open in rain, there’s no worry. The outside mount also protects the screens from falling branches and curious squirrels.
The scratch made by the table saw is only noticeable when you’re prone in bed, a reminder that Jon and I get on swell even while toiling in a dirty basement, where blame for what goes wrong is not assigned to the nearest person but to the sonofa-bitching table saw. As it turned out, Jon didn’t seem to mind all the cabin maintenance. As long as he got to fish, nothing seemed to puncture his good humor. This could work, I thought.
Fourteen
The buildings were up, but there was still plenty to do around the place. I know which end of the hammer to hold and can do a little finish carpentry, though my framing skills are limited to picture framing. I’m not Rosie the Riveter, but I wanted to contribute. We soon realized that working off the grid has specific limitations, bearing little relation to projects taken on in the plumbed and wired world of civilization. Working outdoors with no electricity or work surfaces and a half-hour drive to the nearest hardware store can turn the simplest do-it-yourself project into a make-do-it-yourself challenge.
Woefully ill equipped, I didn’t realize that all my existing tools would be rendered null. I owned lightweight plug-in girly tools: a silly drill, a weak sander, a sissy saw. My toolbox of screwdrivers, hammers, and wrenches might as well be labeled Fisher-Price. I needed new cordless, heavier versions of everything. In the aisles of Fleet Farm, I looked at gas-operated generators, brush cutters, and chain saws, lifting and dropping price tags and flinching in advance at the idea of running power tools with hand-yanked ignitions, blue smoke, and whirring blades.
The battery-operated chain saw is a purchase I may never live down, now nicknamed “Lady Schick.” If I use all my weight and an additional backup battery, Lady and I can chaw through a young poplar trunk in six to ten minutes. By the time I squeak timber!, my neighbors with their smoking Husqvarnas and Stihls have already cut copses of trees as if mowing stalks of celery.
Looking around at all that needed doing and weighing the difficulties ahead, it’s no wonder I contracted a case of dwindling confidence. I was able to clean up, stain logs, do finishing work—and that was about it.
The rustic, wide, rough plank floors in either building weren’t adequate. They were rustic, all right, with uneven cracks of light that indicated, yes indeed, that’s how all the battalions of bugs and bats were getting in. I cleared both buildings and had Rory come out to install plywood subfloors and four-inch smooth floorboards of tightly grained tamarack, which would, Rory insisted, outlast us all, sounding remarkably like my father. It seemed I was constantly being reminded of the enduring sturdiness of everything in our little compound as it related to the mortality of our weak, flesh-clad frames. It made me wish for a mobile home delivered complete, down to the knobs and cushions, the sort of structure I would live to see crumble.
Rory did a beautiful job, and when it came time to sand and finish, he took off, dragging his generator behind him. Forgetting my own credo that only a fool would tackle their own floor-finishing, I gathered sanding blocks and papers of varying grits, tack cloths, brushes, stain, polyurethane, and a sleeping bag. For two days, I hand sanded on my knees while pine chaff floated in through the screens, a green grit that mingled with the fine wood dust, gunking up the sandpaper and my face mask, effective as a doily so that I blew Kermit-colored snot. Wishing for a roaring Shop-Vac, I ineffectually skidded my battery-operated Dustbuster around (no wonder bears hate them), resorting to a child’s broom, which only raised more dust.
I slept in the back of the station wagon, which would have been uncomfortable even if my bones weren’t already grousing from crouching and kneeling all day. I spent the third morning staining and varnishing, with only the radio to talk to.
WELY, run by the local Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, airs a Slovene language show, Native news programming, Twins baseball games (sounding identical to those aired in the 1960s), a call-in message board for campers in the BWCA, lost-and-found announcements, want ads, and music programming with everything from bluegrass to waltz to punk. Recorded ads for local businesses are reminiscent of old AM radio spots, often with da up nort’ accent exaggerated. The Polka Pal Don show had aired every Saturday morning since I’d learned to walk, and after Don died, it was revived as the Old Town Polka Show, with the same Frankie Yankovic tunes like “Beavers Polka,” dedicated to such folks as Otto and Elsa celebrating their thirty-fifth or for Arno at the nursing home turning ninety-five years young. The only other static-free stations were the CBC and a French-language news station from Ontario, but only WELY sounded like an open phone line from yesteryear, as if someone in the 1960s forgot to put the receiver back on the hook.
I sanded and tacked the floor between coats, bobbing along to mazurkas in the morning and seventies rock in the afternoon, happily unaware of the fumes until I had finished singing a rousing off-key rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of my lungs and could feel the headache coming like a fist. On my to-buy list I wrote “respirator” and on my wish list added “generator.”
I gained new respect for Rory and Lars for being able to work tirelessly in adverse outdoor conditions, seeming
ly immune to the heat, mosquitoes, black flies, frostbite, and fatigue. They were tough up-north versions of Norwegian bachelor farmers, sort of lone-wolf bachelor loggers. Their homes are on a large, femalefree chunk of land that’s been in the family for generations, where they can do what they want without anybody breathing down their necks, without the government telling them what they can or cannot do.
Such isolated living seemed sometimes to affect their communication skills. Rory’s hearing was fine; he was only listening impaired when it came to vital instructions regarding specific tasks. Or maybe he was just too busy talking to listen. One day while he was working on the fish house, Terry dropped by, and upon being introduced, Rory launched into long soliloquies, including details of a part-by-part car restoration he was working on, a diatribe on why the economy was tanking (liberals), and a protracted story of a recent malady in which his testicles swelled to the size of cantaloupes.
We spoke at length about a design for the solar shed, which would open from one side to access the batteries and controls, with a covered open space on the opposite side to stack wood. Rory constructed it at the sawmill, and when it was delivered to the site and plunked down, I could only stare, speechless. It was completely ass-backwards, bearing no resemblance to the plan. It was a 2 x 4-foot closet with a useless porch and door on the wrong side, with nowhere to store wood. I’d requested 6 x 6, which indeed were the dimensions of the roof. Along with my new closet, I got an expensive lesson in learning to be explicit, Rory got a check, and I still didn’t have a shed.
Rory had been deeply impressed by a documentary called Alone in the Wilderness, by Dick Proenneke, a city fellow who went rogue during his fifties, leaving civilization and the lower forty-eight states for the Alaskan wilds to live far off the grid and, as the title suggests, very much alone. Proenneke’s survival depended largely on being clever, and fortunately he had nothing but time to think stuff up. The trek on foot into his valley was many rugged miles, so he didn’t transport much in the way of weight, maybe an ax blade or a hammerhead, for which he would whittle handles from nearby trees. In fact, he made whatever he could from what wood was standing around, so when it came time to install door latches and hinges on his log cabin, he devised an ingenious hinge mechanism with every part down to the dowel pins carved from heartwood.
Rory was so taken by Dick’s ingenuity he embarked on carving a set of hinges for the fish house door, with an offer to do the same for the outhouse. Once the door was up and swinging, the hinges looked so impressive, Rory boasted up his handiwork with a lifetime guarantee.
Unfortunately, Rory hadn’t noticed that in the film, the hinges were carved from blocks cut against the grain. The hinges held up until one day when I was standing just outside chatting with a neighbor. They split, and the heavy door came off and banged itself forward. I caught most of the weight on my wrists, where the skin was shorn so that afterward my dually bandaged wrists prompted meaningful looks from strangers who wouldn’t have believed me anyway had I explained that a door walked into me.
Not that I would have held Rory to his guarantee; in the end, Jon and I thought it best to replace the hinges with wrought iron. The scars on my wrist are faded now, a bit like old cancellation stamps over a warranty.
I’d had in mind a quiet refuge in which to work, but the structure meant to be my studio quickly morphed into a kitchen. I do not have a room here but the woodland equivalent, a stump of one’s own, where I’ve penned outhouse instructions and sappy potty haikus for its walls:
Real men pee outside
like hairy old Sasquatch does
Are you afraid to?
Lions and tigers
and bears and mice. Please cover
The toilet paper.
Please, nothing but pee
poo and TP down the hole
This loo does not flush.
Not that anyone spends more time in the outhouse than it takes to read three lines, since wolf spiders are great motivators to make haste, looking more like a wolf than a spider, burly, with hairy legs that can span a beer coaster. I confess I’m not very Buddhist about the ones found in our sleeping quarters, and their aftermath is rather ghastly.
Each trip here requires the preparation of a camping trip. A few days before heading north, I’ll fill square gallon jugs with water and set them in the freezer. Unlike blocks, bottled ice won’t swamp the food as it melts, and once thawed, the bottles provide additional clean drinking water. Meals are planned in advance, a few cooked and frozen at home—usually soup, chili, or stew—to be eaten on whatever day it thaws. Fish or chicken for the grill is purchased frozen. Various batteries are plugged in to recharge. Duffels are packed with cabin clothes (extra socks, always). The ever-shuttling box of sheets and towels and bags of dry food are packed. Come departure day, the mail is stopped, the water turned off, electronics unplugged, plants doused. The car is jigsaw-jammed with coolers, water jugs, groceries, tools, guitar case, clean bedding, books, laptop, etc. On the road, there are the usual stops: Cloquet for gas and beer and a burger at Gordy’s, Tower for bait and whatever additional groceries are needed. At this point, even the passenger’s footwell is crowded with six-packs, food, or clear plastic bags delicately propped upright between feet, the minnows swimming in a silver funnel formation between ankles.
Upon arrival, we unpack the car, open the buildings, turn on the propane, carry water, dispose of vermin, shoo mouse turds from kitchen surfaces, wash counters, sweep dead moths and bugs from the floors, pitch the screen house, chant a blessing over the solar inverter, liberate bats, brush cobwebs and leaves from the outdoor kitchen, shake the spiders from the vinyl grill cover, then check to see if any have webbed over the gas jets (a potential propane tragedy), get a few casts in before dinner, hang the hammock, set up the camp chairs, gather wood, cook dinner, eat, boil water, wash dishes, break up kindling, build a fire, crack a beer, make the bed, fall into it.
More often than not, we’re greeted with some unexpected challenge requiring a fix or solution, or two, or three. Last June, appropriately, every tall Juneberry bush along the road was pulled down by bears, making it impassable. In July, we found the exterior of the cabin riddled with splintered holes as if blasted by an M-80. Our first thoughts were vandals or nearsighted hunters. We squinted into the holes, stuck our fingers in, and examined the damage until a distant hammering sent palms to temples. A woodpecker, of course! It had been attacking the small worm-holes in the timbers to get at the ants camped within. So an infestation as well, just our luck and the sort of dual setback that can devour days, requiring multiple trips to the hardware store. First there’s chemical warfare waged against the pesky ants, then the wait for them to succumb, then filling the pecker-hole-ant-tombs with wood putty, then waiting for the putty to dry, then sanding, and finally staining the repaired holes to match the wood (not quite). Weekend kaput.
We’ve had more woodpecker damage over the years. After mulling over such deterrents as razor wire or steel siding, we discovered that things which flutter in the breeze will also keep the buggers from clinging and drilling. As a temporary solution, we tacked lengths of neon marking tape to the eaves like kite tails, and I made a mental list of things to find or make: beaded curtains, paper chains, grass skirts, Tyvek fringe, tinsel, bunting, feathers, Tibetan prayer flags, spoon chimes … Then I remembered the roll of yellow crime scene tape, much more appropriate. Yes, I finally admitted to Jon, renting would be easier and cheaper.
This is a potential workaholic’s paradise. The toil can be all absorbing, which makes it doubly important to set aside time for leisure. And we do, to float aimlessly in the kayak, reading in the hammock strung between giant white pines at water’s edge, sitting in the lounger cocked skyward to stare at the clouds, as good as blank pages.
Fifteen
People build in the middle of the woods for the peace and quiet. Here there is sometimes peace, but never quiet. In fact, the singular most surprising characteristic is the uncea
sing soundtrack that makes me think there really should be a name, like onomatopoeia, for a place that sounds like what it is.
The background choruses change by the hour, day, and season. Spring is a din of every bird auditioning at once. One mid-April dawn at the beginning of the avian mating frenzy, Jon and I were jolted upright in bed by a woodpecker announcing its territory, drumming the metal roof over our heads, loud as a Gatling gun.
There is usually a brief lowering of volume in April before the influx of summer birds when, as in This Is Spinal Tap, it goes up to eleven. Migrating species spotted at the feeders and birdbath out my office window in Minneapolis will usually arrive in the north about two weeks later. By June, the volume ramps so that you can barely hear the hummingbirds pip-thwitting overhead while trying to bat each other off the feeders. We’d hopefully hung red syrup feeders in the pines, unsure if this was too far north, but once filled, barely an hour passed before a squadron of ruby-throats blasted in as if shot from a cannon. Voracious, they were intent on draining every drop from the feeders, trying to guzzle their own weight—and rubies are good sized, as far as hummingbirds go. Once when Sam and I were in a nature preserve in Guatemala a tiny hummingbird took a liking to the bright band on my straw hat, and thinking it was an obscenely large bee, I swatted at it with the fervor of one about to be stung. An appalled onlooker caught my flippering hands and pointed out the creature was a zunzuncito, a little buzz-buzz, also known as the bee hummingbird; darling, once you know what they are. Their hardier northern cousins are twice their size and twice as bold. We watched from our lawn chairs as they dive-bombed the feeder, and Jon set his video camera on a tripod. We later slowed the speed to watch the comic action. With all their color and dash, the hummingbirds formed an airborne roller derby of Tinkerbells.
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