Tomorrow I will set the legs for my table and build a stool and a bench.
Thundering down country. The lake is going down, and the waterfall across the lake isn’t running its usual amount. Twin Lakes needs a good rain.
June 27th. A good rain it was. My garden looks rejuvenated.
Today will be a pole-hunting day. I need about thirty to make the slats for my bunks, small but of good length, which is a tough combination. I will have to investigate the Twin Lakes Lumberyard pretty thoroughly.
I paddled down country and struck it rich. I found a spruce thicket such as I have never seen in this country: saplings an inch or a bit over at the butt and ten feet tall—just what I needed. I had them cut in no time. Loaded them into the canoe and paddled across the puddle-still lake to home.
While I was peeling the poles the wind came up strong from an unusual quarter—directly across from Allen Mountain. It brought rain and it furrowed the lake as rough as a cob. This lake can really change its personality in a hurry. Like a woman all smiles one minute and dancing a temper tantrum the next. I was happy to find I had enough bunk poles and even some extras that I could use for stool and bench logs.
The wind died as abruptly as it came. Now the lake is grinning with reflections again. A picture evening.
June 28th. Bright as crystal this morning and not a cloud to be seen.
A furniture building day. First a kitchen chair and then a bench three feet long. The echoing of the axe, the whacking noises of the driven chisel, the crisp bite of the sharp auger into wood, the gathering pile of chips and shavings—and both articles ready to glue before noon.
I weeded my garden at lunch time and watered it. The peas are looking healthy and the green onions are almost ready to use.
I am near the end of the building job on the cabin until Babe comes. He’s supposed to bring glue and the polyethylene for my roof.
I spent the afternoon cleaning up scraps. The wild roses are blooming in the cabin yard. The ground dogwood and the little moss flowers are out. And people spend money for lawn mowers and waste time walking behind them!
I finally got around to sharpening my tools as I do every evening. Time to call it a day. A gentle breeze was moving up the lake as I trudged the beach to Spike’s cabin and supper.
June 29th. The growing season is definitely at hand. The blueberry blossoms are starting to fall, and soon I will have to check on the young berries.
Today’s thought was to put hinges on my windows. I need a three-legged stool and a book-rack type of shelf to store books, camera gear, and clothes. This last project would take some doing as it would require three shelves three feet long, ranging from fifteen to twelve inches in width. Lots of ripping to turn out that much lumber.
The job was done, with a good-feeling right arm to prove it. The rustic rack has a lonesome look. It needs filling. That will come soon enough.
I thought for a spell about a roof-jack to take the stovepipe. That is important. A man thinks better when he’s working. Beneath the thirty-five inch overhang in front of the cabin I augered holes into the logs and drove in pegs, good hanging places for stuff better off outside than in. I’m still figuring about that jack.
Tomorrow is Sunday. I will go someplace.
June 30th. A third of the way down to Emerson Creek, the wind blew strong in my face and it was a real battle to keep headway in the chop of the water. I had my knees spread wide against the canoe bottom, and I had to put back and shoulders into the job to make the creek. Those sourdough pancakes must have a high octane content. I had come down to prospect for suitable stumps from which to fashion wooden hinges. Steel hinges are better, no doubt, but it is interesting to see what one can do using only material from the forest.
While foraging among the uprooted trees, I noticed wolf tracks mixed in with the caribou tracks, and I thought of my plaster cast. I would have to check that out. I couldn’t find the hinge stock I wanted. The trees were too big. I would have to try another department of the lumberyard another time.
What I did find, though, on the trek back along the creek bed to the canoe, was a squarish, pale orange rock. I have a feeling it will be the center rock in the arch of the fireplace.
I noticed the boss hunter’s plane came in today. He didn’t stay long at his cabin, just long enough to check his camp for supplies he would need when he brought in the trophy boys during the sheep season. I wonder if the big rams feel that first stir of uneasiness? Do they know the difference between his plane and Babe’s?
The wind I fought before, now helped me home. Wind and fire. Help you one minute and kill you the next. All depends on the time and place.
July 1st. This morning I fashioned a box for the plaster cast of the wolf track. I sawed off the end of a cabin log and made a two-and-a-quarter-inch slice for the box, and a one-and-three-quarter-inch slice for the lid. I hollowed them out with the wood auger and chisel and now have a neat box. I will mix some plaster, pour it in, then bed my cast in it and let it set.
That roof-jack for the stove pipe, I’ve been thinking about. Select the proper location, and nail a cross tie to support the two roof poles. Reinforce the base of the roof-jack to make it wider and stiffer. The pipe will be installed so it will stay there without wires. A few sheet metal screws should do it.
Time to put the tar paper over the roof poles and fasten it down. Not forest material but I had better use it.
A man-powered lumber mill. Ripping board from a log is a workout for the right arm.
Later: The tar paper project is off. Heavy rain—a good soaking, one to replenish the forest sponge.
A problem. How to clean the million tiny chips and grains of sawdust out of the gravel on the cabin floor? An idea. Pack all the gravel back out and toss it into the lake. The chips and dust stayed on the surface and drifted away. I shoveled the gravel back on the beach, let it drain, and packed it back again. Clean wall-to-wall gravel once more.
July 2nd. The lake is like a sheet of glass.
My roof poles are too wet for the tar paper. This gives me a chance to go prospecting again for some hinge timber. I figure I need the butt end of eight small trees to make four sets of hinges.
A peaceful trip down the lake gliding through the reflections of the mountains. After scouting around, I located ten seasoned spruce stump sections. Took a few extra in case I had a bad one or made a wrong cut. A few unusual looking rocks found their way into the canoe also.
I had a good load. This was a chance to see the difference in traveling time between a loaded canoe and an empty one. One hour to the minute to my cabin site from the lower end. I doubt if I have ever beaten that time, running empty.
Just as I beached the canoe, I saw ruffled water not far behind. The breeze brought rain.
I was anxious to try making hinges. I saw a cabin once with some, but they were very crude. I worked the wood to shape with axe and drawknife. Now to saw the fork in the butt end. Forty-five minutes and I had half my hinge made. Not bad.
It was still raining when I came back from a lunch of sourdough pancake sandwiches of peanut butter and last summer’s blueberry jelly.
Another tree made the other half of the hinge, and the next tree made a complete hinge. Two more to go, and the hinges will be ready to auger holes for their pins. The hinges will serve another purpose. They are long enough to serve as battens for holding the door planks together.
It started to rain hard. While I waited the shower out, I honed my cutting tools to real fine edges.
I checked the garden. The peas are grabbing hold of the brush supports I stuck along the row the other day.
July 3rd. A cool, damp morning with fog coming off the slope like the smoke from many campfires.
I finished my hinges. All they need now is the holes augered for the pins. I can do that another time. No wind now, so it is perfect for the tar-paper job.
I lapped the tarred felt paper four to five inches. I need just one more strip twenty feet long. Ther
e’s another roll in Spike’s cabin. I must admit the cabin looks better already with the start of a roof.
Tomorrow is the Fourth. I should take a trip, but Babe might pick the holiday to fly in. I had better stick close to camp.
July 4th. A big stack of sourdoughs this morning. Hope Babe does come. I’m about out of bacon and eggs, but I can do without.
I got a twelve-inch arctic char on the trotline. It will be the main attraction for lunch. A char, with a more satiny sheen than a lake trout, is a cousin of the brook trout.
I finished the tar-paper job on the roof first thing. If I only had the polyethylene, I could have it all ready for the moss chunks cut from the forest floor.
I worked some more on the hinges, augered the holes to take the seven-eighth-inch hinge pins of spruce. I am anxious to see how the door will look and operate with this forest hardware.
No sign of Babe. Best to keep busy. I need a woodshed so I sketched a plan of it. Twelve feet by eight feet with the toilet on one end. I would build it on the order of a log shelter, open in front, a gable with only a narrow roof over the open front to keep rain and snow from blowing in. I could set my sawbuck under the overhang.
Cleared brush for the woodshed project. I would have to cut some logs, maybe twelve or so.
Whitecaps raced along beside me as I paddled back to supper. No lives lost at Twin Lakes this holiday. I wonder how many died in the south 48?
Roof all tar papered and waiting for polyethylene.
July 5th. Clear and cold. My first thought was the spuds. There was frost on the leaves. I was sure they would turn black as soon as the sun warmed them.
No plane and no roof covering. Might as well start on the woodshed and toilet. I was surprised to find ice just under the moss. Moss is certainly a wonderful insulation.
I cut, hauled, and peeled eleven logs by noon. The sound of a plane interrupted me. It was the boss hunter coming up the lake. Was he bringing a party in this early, or was it just supplies to store and make a few repairs?
The mosquitoes gave me a bad time after lunch as I worked on the shed. Tomorrow I will use the headnet. It is really the best protection and not too bad to wear after an hour or so.
My potato leaves have just a touch of brown.
July 6th. Where are the grayling at the mouth of Hope Creek? Not a strike this morning.
Back to the woodshed project. Hewing and notching logs most of the day. I am now six logs high. I wore the headnet and had less trouble with the insects except for one getting inside now and then and wanting out, and bouncing around in front of my eyes until I had to mash it. I wore two shirts, one with no sleeves, like a vest. Even so, when I bent over, the mosquitoes would work on my back with their sharp needles. Come September I will be rid of them.
No Babe yet. He must be busy.
July 7th. An odds-and-ends day.
I put out a good-sized laundry to flutter and snap in a warm wind. Did some mending. Wrote letters and tossed them into the pile ready to go out on Babe’s express. Then a visit to the Twin Lakes’ barbershop. That little Penn’s Easy Trim is the best investment I have made for a long time.
I went to my empty gas-can supply and spent the afternoon tin bending. I turned out a dishpan, a wash pan, eating pans, and a shelf to put above my bunk for toilet articles.
I started to read a book that Babe had brought last time. Strange how the Bible has predicted so many things that have come to pass. And now the end is near, it says. I hope I have time to finish my cabin.
July 8th. Awoke at three. I could hear rain on the sod roof, and the sky faucets really have to be wide open to do that.
Blue sky by five o’clock. The weather changes like a man’s fortunes.
I would build my woodshed four feet high in back, slope the roof to an overall seven feet, then down to six feet on the short side. I found the timber I needed, dropped it, limbed it, packed it in, and peeled it. All set for material now except for roof poles.
Caught a grayling and a lake trout in the fast water rushing into the lake from Hope Creek. I didn’t give them much time to carry on. The belly dictates how sporting a man is going to be.
July 9th. On the job at six. Made good progress on the gable logs, and finally set the ridge log into place. Trimmed the gables smooth from the ridge log to the eave log.
Need about thirty roof poles.
I paddled across the still lake and followed the shoreline down beyond Glacier Creek. As I glided along, I studied the cottonwood and willow belt just above the spruce timber and saw a bull moose looming black and huge out of the willow scrub. He was big and distinctive, one to watch for again.
When I beached the canoe and prowled along the bed of Glacier Creek, I found two of the whitest and roundest boulders I have ever seen.
They weighed between thirty and forty pounds each. There were others, some smaller and some bigger, but these two were mates and more perfect than all the rest. I had just the place for them. I packed them back to the canoe, loaded them gently into the bow, and paddled home. They set off the lakeshore entrance of my gravel path just right, one on either side of it. I will call them “The Grizzly Eggs.”
July 10th. I had the woodshed logs gathered on the beach when I heard the plane. Babe at last! I left the poles high and dry and started the long paddle to the cabin. I met Babe walking down the beach. As usual he was in a hurry. I hoped I hadn’t held him up.
Four dozen eggs this trip, a full slab of bacon, some candy bars, a big heavy Stanley jackplane dull and rusty as sin, but I could put it into shape and make the wood ribbons fly. No polyethylene. Babe said he might return later in the evening on the way back from a trip he had to make. I gave him the outgoing mail anyway, and off he went. A seventeen-and-a-half-inch lake trout on the trotline. Enough for company. Babe didn’t come back.
July 11th. Calm. Perfect water for hauling my roof poles.
On the way back to the cabin site with the heavily loaded canoe, it started to rain. I beached the canoe well up on solid ground. It was nice to have the tar-paper roof overhead. While the rain pattered, I sharpened the blade of the jack-plane and oiled it. Then I moved my log bench under the overhang and proceeded to make shavings. All the boards I had ripped for shelves, counter, and table had to be planed on both sides and the two edges. Also the two-inch planks for the door. By the time I had finished, more shavings were piled up than I had ever made in a day before. I fitted the boards under the counter. The table will be ready to put together as soon as the glue arrives.
A light rain all afternoon. The mountains must be dry because there is no sign of running water yet.
A special treat for supper. I pulled some of my green onions to spice up the salad of fireweed greens.
July 12th. Heavy fog. No danger of frost today.
I put on the door hinges, first the top hinge, then a plumb bob from its center to the bottom one. I think they are positioned about right. I cut the door planks to length and ripped the last one to make the width right. I sawed out and planed the door-stop molding.
Streams are beginning to show on the mountain slopes. The lake is rising.
I fear the blueberries really took a nipping with the heavy frost not so long ago. I find some berries big and healthy, but many are small and shriveled. Looks like a shortage of blueberry pies this August and September.
July 13th. About a dozen scoter ducks were bobbing on the rough lake this morning.
A small char on the trotline. In its stomach I found a hook I lost a few weeks back. Bright as silver, it looked better than when it was lost.
I put the roof poles on the woodshed. Next comes the indoor plumbing project. The front framework is in place, just the right height for comfort.
Sourdough biscuits drenched with navy bean soup for supper. There’s a dish fit for any working man.
July 14th. Still beset with a siege of damp weather. This will be a day for inside chores. Fire up the smoker and give that big slab of bacon some more smoke. Letters
to write. Work on the wolf track box. Put on a fresh kettle of navy beans to simmer the day away.
In the afternoon I popped some corn. I accomplished what I had set out to do. A man needs a catch-up day now and then.
July 15th. Still damp, with fog hanging low on the mountains.
Spent the day on the construction of the john, an important consideration in any new home. I made it big enough so that I could store a half-dozen empty gas cans. Materials to finish the front required lots of time ripping boards from the last of my cabin logs.
These white boulders, perfectly mated, were found at Glacier Creek. Weighing about 40 pounds each, the “Grizzly Eggs” set off the lakeshore entrance of the gravel path, one on either side of it. Notice the weathered caribou rack. No need to mow the lawn.
July 16th. The sun might burn through the fog today.
My day’s work cut out for me. Build the front facing for the john. Smooth all the boards with the big jack plane. Then the door: sixty-four inches high and twenty-five inches wide and not a board in the house. It will take some ripping to put out better than ten board feet.
I had a log spotted in my firewood supply, for five boards an inch thick with two slabs left over. It was twelve o’clock when I finished the last cut. Four boards would make the door and the other one, cleats to hold it together.
After lunch I trimmed the edges and planed the boards smooth. And there it was—my door. About five hours and a bit more from the log to the finished product. Probably a thirty-dollar job at Alaskan wages. I made the hinges from a gas can, three of them three and three-quarter inches wide, and they look almost store-bought. And then the final touch—saw out the crescent—and the john door was ready to hang.
One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition Page 6