Whalah, here I am again. I’ve been on this Alaska kick all week. I guess I’m homesick. So what stories should I tell today, there are so many? I know, let’s revisit the early days. My wife and I affectionately call it BJ, before Jan.
As originally stated in a past blog, I staked a forty acre homestead site in the interior of Alaska. (Technically it was thirty-nine point- something. It’s hard to get accurate with only a hundred foot tape. HaHa.) My wife at the time, her two boys, and my three boys walked the whole property and put corner markers in all four corners of the property. That was fun in itself.
Why? You might ask. Have you ever tried to walk straight through a forest filled with trees and deep heavy brush? (I’ll look for a picture that I can share with you that will portray this fact.) Nothing other than animals had transverse this land accept maybe a lost miner or two.
Let’s get back to the story. After paying our $250 for the privilege of staking this land, we put actual stakes in the ground on all four corners of our property. We then were required by the rules of homesteading to brush or clean the vegetation for ten feet across the whole perimeter of our forty acres. We did this with five or six machetes’ we purchased from the outdoors store in Anchorage. That was really fun. The youngest was nine, maybe.
At the time we were living in Houston, Alaska, just north of Wasilla so every weekend or when we had time we traveled north two-hundred miles to continue this process. The brushing alone took a few weeks to complete.
Our (or really my) intention was for us to move up close to the homestead before the next winter. We arranged with my friend at Ferry, Devere, to rent one of his log cabins from January to May. In May he had gold miners coming from Fairbanks who rented from him. So we had to be out by then.
My spouse wasn’t too happy with the arrangements, but it continued mostly as planned.
In that year as it is today in Alaska, we received Alaska dividend checks for each resident in our home which amounted to over $7000. We purchased two used ATVs, a Suzuki 225 and a Suzuki 135, and some building equipment and lived on the remainder after me moved into the little cabin.
The quaint cabin was about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long divided into by an interior wall. The front section was the kitchen, living area, and sleeping quarters for the adults. It had a loft which was the sleeping area. There was a wood heating stove and a wood cook stove in the room as well.
The back room was wide open with a few cots like a barracks with a wood stove on one end. We were responsible to get and cut our own wood mostly done with an axe.
Because the kids hadn’t seen their grandpa and grandma for a long time, we paid for my parents to come and spend a few days in Alaska. In the winter you might ask? My mom still complains about it today. At the time we were still renting a place in Palmer but we brought them to the little cabin for a visit.
My dad was adventurer. He built churches in Nevada, and pioneered missions on Indian Reservations so he wanted to go on an ATV ride up to the cabin. Remember, this is winter in Alaska and there was plenty of snow. He wanted to see my property three miles up the hill, so we prepared to ride.
We bundled him up the best we could. I think it was -20 or so. He crawled on behind me and held on tight. We were off.
When we arrived at the cabin site, the two of us were thoroughly chilled. I had not even prepared the ground for the cabin even though I had an idea where we would be built it. He looked around and grinned. I could tell he was saying inside, “This is a stupid idea.” But he didn’t say it. He just ginned.
Shortly after my parents returned to the lower forty-eight, we began the long process of clearing the area for the cabin. By this time we had purchased a Stihl Chainsaw and it made life a little easier.
One of the first things we needed to do was dig holes for the large post we would build the cabin upon. We couldn’t pour cement for the footings for a couple of reasons. First, it was too cold for cement and we had to have the cabin done by May. Secondly, we were in the sticks. It was way too far to haul cement up a trail three mile on an ATV.
We had a pick and attempted to dig the holes but to no avail. The ground was frozen. Now, what do we do? I read it in a book. We started a small fire where we wanted each of the post to be placed. Eventually the ground became soft enough to dig, a small chunk at a time. It was still very frustrating.
We prepared the cabin to be approximately fifteen by twenty-five, meaning that I needed about ten or twelve holes for footing post.
(I’m taking a break from writing and eating chips and salsa…Yumm!!)
The boys and I combed the forest for trees to use for footing post and for the rest of the cabin. I had prepared a plan of what size logs I need to get a certain height and length. We only needed at the longest a ten foot log that was nearly the same circumference on each end. We found and marked at least seventy trees and still we had thousands of trees we didn’t even touch.
Remember, we are still in the middle of winter in Alaska. It seemed like it snowed almost every day. Many days we were stuck in the little cabin and couldn’t even go up and work. Of course, the boys really loved that. By this time the kids had developed friends in the area that they wanted to spend time with. The boys were home schooled, kind of, so we didn’t have to worry about getting them down to Healy every day.
I can remember many days when I had to go up and work by myself on the cabin. I was getting very anxious and we did need to be done by May.
One log at a time went up. The lower logs weren’t that hard. The logs were heavy and wet but usually with the help from the ATV’s and every body, we could muscle the logs in place. This caused a problem one day when my wife at the time crushed her finger with, I believe, the second log we placed.
One aside, we didn’t build a traditional overlapping log structure. We build what they call an upright log system. In other words, every corner and every window or door, we would put an up-right log on top of the footing log. This made for shorter horizontal logs.
One of the first things we completed was the floor of the cabin. We framed it in and it was crazy because of the different shapes of logs around the bottom. We chose three quarter inch tongue and grove plywood for the floor. We hauled all 14 sheets, a few at a time, up to the cabin. We borrowed Devere’s tailor to carry some of them. I recall one day when the walls were about halfway up it snowed two feet on the floor of the cabin.
The northern wall of the cabin had the largest logs in it for some reason. We didn’t plan it that way, but it happened. The last few logs were gigantic. We had no power tools or generator. We had nothing but our own ingenuity. With the upper logs we built a log ramp and tied rope on either end and two of us pulled the rope while the rest pushed from behind. It really worked and it was a lot of work!
We built peaks for the cabin on the front and back. The back was facing the west. The logs were held securely together with foot long spikes that we hammered through one log into another. We also, by hand, drilled holes for dowels that we hammered them in as well. We did this only because dowels were cheaper than spikes. We saved the spikes for the peaks.
While we were completing the cabin, my wife and I applied for jobs in concessions for Denali National Park which was about twenty miles away. While the roof was going on and it was a little warmer, we were preparing to begin our work schedule.
The family was fortunate enough to had been given our roofing and insulation material for free. It was aluminum and every piece had to be carried across the railroad catwalk by hand. My youngest son, Jeffery, was told to always wear his gloves when carrying the roofing because the metal was very sharp. Well, the worst case scenario happened. He sliced his hand open with the metal while I was at work. They called me from the clinic and it scared me silly. It turned our alright but it put me back a few notches with my patience.
Believe it or not we really didn’t have to be out of the cabin by May. Devere was off by a month but we completed our project by the time we were t given. What a winter. Not quite the winter from hell. That was the last musing.
Well, what fun, but still great memories. I’ve leaned the hard way that even through the struggles we can become stronger on the other side.
David Erickson
