dreamshark

The Old Timers Cabin is one of the oddball attractions at Itasca that is easy to miss, which is why it was kind of my favorite. Richard saw the exhibit about this at the Interpretive Center and we went looking for it: down the long flight of stairs from Douglas Lodge, past the riverboat mooring, through the bog walk, and up a little rise to this most beautiful point jutting out into Lake Itasca. It doesn't look all that remarkable until you realize that it is a full-size one room cabin built of logs so big that they only needed four courses of them. Holy buckets! (as we say in Minnesota)

Okay, for scale, here I am standing in the doorway. Which is not a super tall doorway, but well over 6 feet high.

And here is the magnificent view from the cabin dooryard. What a shame that nobody ever lived here! Why not, you ask? Because this was the CCC's first "practice" cabin, built with the biggest logs they could lay their hands on. It was never meant for anybody to live in.

Again, scale.

And here is the really excellent explanatory sign, from which we learn many useful things. Yes, this was "the boys'" first practice cabin. The boss wanted to call it The Old Timers Cabin for some reason, but the boys called it The Honeymoon Cabin. One can only imagine why. They built it in the winter because snow sledges were the only way to move those huge logs. And they couldn't just cut them where they stood because the boss WOULDN'T LET THEM CUT DOWN ANY TREES; they had to scrounge around and find deadfall. Boy, did they EVER. They built the cabin first, then jacked it up and added the granite and mortar foundation later.

And back in 1935, the National Park Service produced the most amazing document, modestly titled Park Structures and Facilities. This little book was authored by one Albert H. Good, grand Architect for the State Park Division of the NPS, who combined a profound knowledge of the principles of design and construction with a deeply held philosophy about the state and national park system, a florid writing style, and a soupcon of wit. Seriously, I recommend following that link and perusing this little book. Some of the material is a little dated (oh, if only the 1935 philosophy of bath houses was still in vogue!) but for the most part it is timeless. Since you probably cant read that sign, here is Mr. Good's pithy review of the Old Timer's Cabin:

Only the sworn statement of one who is well informed, to the effect that this cabin was built from wind-falls and not cut timber, permits conservationists to show this cabin here. Almost humorous in its scale, it is far from that as a reminder of magnificent forests all but extinct. As a relic of the days when trees were trees, this cabin can inspire us to firm resolution to permit them to be so again in the long term future. Somewhere between the scale of this log work and the spindling scale of the majority of present day log structures is the happy and satisfying medium that is too infrequently seen. The random informality of the axe-hewn log ends contributes greatly to the naive charm of this little building.