The Cabin
By: John Egelkrout
Tags: Nostalgia, High School, Éducation, Brotherhood, Friendship

The story you are about to read is a story about camaraderie, boyhood energy, and the bonding that takes place through group effort. In the building of this cabin, there was no adult supervision. There were no detailed plans. There was no boss, no supervisor. There was no reward save the end result, which was a crude cabin in the woods, a plethora of memories, and a bond between boys that spanned decades.

I came across a picture of it the other day. “The Cabin” is what we called it.

The year was 1975. I was a 17 year old senior in high school, and my friends and I, like so many of our peers, were bored with our daily existence and looking for something — anything — to inject fun or a sense of purpose into our lives. We had long outgrown high school in most respects, and going to classes was little more than a stale ritual. Don’t get me wrong. We were good students, that is, when we wanted to be. The trouble was we had long stopped wanting to be. There had to be another reason to get up in the morning.

We had long kicked around the idea of building some kind of shack or cabin, though for the most part, it was just the pipe dream of boys wanting to be men, of boys wanting that independence reserved for adults. It was a desire to have a place of our own, a place we could call ours. Small boys built forts, hung signs that said “no girls allowed,” and only allowed people in who were in their “club.”

That was not remotely what we had in mind.

It was Mike and his brother John who first proposed building a log cabin on land owned by their parents. They owned a golf course with 160 acres, and on it was a large swath of woods far off the beaten path. There was an overgrown logging road leading into the woods that emptied out into a small clearing. Tall pines, birch and poplar provided a canopy over the site. It was was perfect. Our budget, however, was not. To be completely honest, saying we even had a budget was a gross exaggeration. We had no money at all. What we did, have however, was determination. Sometimes determination is more important than means. This would be one of those times.

The four of us — Mike, his brother John, our friend Bart, and I met several times to discuss what was needed in terms of tools and materials. We kept our needs small, our plans simple. This was going to be done with as few modern advantages as possible, which was a good thing considering the budget. We would need a way to drag the logs to the site, a way to cut and notch the logs, and a way to lift the logs into place to make the walls.

Mike and John got permission to use the small family tractor and some heavy chains so that we could skid the logs out of the woods to where the cabin was to be built. If they had a horse, we probably would have commandeered it to skid the logs, but lacking such a steed, a tractor would have to do. Mike and John’s dad also offered us a 2-man logging saw to cut the logs with. Along with the tractor, chains and the 2-man saw, we had several hammers, some nails, and an ax. That was it. That was all we needed.

Mike (standing), Bart (on the wall) and me (sitting in the snow) taking a mid-day break.

Work began early the first morning of our Christmas vacation from school. I picked Bart up at his house at daybreak and we drove out to Mike and John’s in my 1958 Dodge station wagon we called “The Wolf.” Shortly after our arrival, the 4 of us began the half-mile trek across the snowy field and woods to the site where our cabin was to stand. Mike drove the tractor, while the rest of us tromped behind him across the snow on foot. Work was about to begin. Day by day, indeed week by week, logs were skidded out of the woods and dragged to the work site. There they were cut to size with the 2-man saw, notched with an ax, and hoisted into place by the 4 of us lifting them. Slowly, bit by bit, the walls grew higher, and it seemed, the logs heavier. As we became accustomed to the skidding, cutting and lifting, we created a routine where each of knew our role, and the order of operations. In a typical day, we could get 4 or 5 logs cut, notched, and put into place.

Mike and I snowshoe out to the site to plan the next phase. Note the unsupported ribbon of snow draping down from the sleeping loft support.

On the weekends and days off of school, we worked quite literally from dawn to dusk. It was not at all unusual for us to be working in just our shirtsleeves even though this was Wisconsin in the wintertime. Working a 2-man saw or lifting heavy logs kept our blood flowing and our bodies warm. There was no need to be overdressed.

When darkness began to descend on the woods, we would slog our way back through the woods and across the frozen fields, the only sounds being the moan of the tractor and groan of our boots pressing down in the snow. A bluish hue set in over the landscape and the warm glow of Mike and John’s parents’ house could be seen on the horizon as we walked toward it.

In the evening after working all day in the woods, we would pile into the The Wolf and set out in search of a country bar. There we would have a few beers and occasionally a shot or two of Yukon Jack, Wild Turkey or Jack Daniels. Bart would rack up the pool balls and we would take turns playing each other. No one cared that we were only 17. It was a different time.

John and Bart use the 2-man saw to cut a log to size.

For the most part, the cabin building went smoothly. This is not to say we didn’t encounter challenges, however. The first challenge we encountered once the walls were up was simply this — what do we do now? I suggested that we build a sleeping loft. After all, if we ever planned to spend any nights at the cabin, we would need a place to sleep. It would be easier to put in the cross beam before the roof was on than afterward. My suggestion was met with approval, and we set out to cut a cross beam following the same routine we did in cutting the logs that made up the walls. We put in the supports, and covered the sleeping loft with plywood we scavenged.

Building the roof also posed a structural dilemma. Regardless of what we used for the rafters, holding them in place while they were nailed down would not be easy. Bart suggested using a long plank to run down the center with each rafter being nailed to it. We chose to make our rafters out of young poplar trees. Once the 4 corner rafters were nailed to the plank, we lifted it up into place and nailed it. From there we put each rafter up one at a time, nailing it to the top of the cabin wall and to the plank running along the pinnacle. To cover the roof we used old sheets of corrugated steel we scavenged. While it would not provide any insulation, it would keep the rain out and hold the rafters in place. It was the perfect choice and, seriously, the only choice.

Our friend Norm relaxes in the loft. Note the rafters joined together by the central beam.

Once the roof and sleeping loft were completed, we still had to finish the gables, find windows and make a door. We framed in the windows and used, once again, scavenged windows from who-know-where. They weren’t pretty, but they worked. For the gables, we used old boards and lathe in a board and batten style around the frame of the window on the gable. The door was built, once again, with old lumber we could scavenge. By the time the snow melted and Spring arrived, our cabin was ready to be furnished, albeit simply

We procured an old couch, a beaten-up table with a chair to serve as a desk, and a small, rusty, wood-burning stove. We cut a hole in the gable for the stovepipe. It was a simple decor, but that was the idea. It wasn’t much, but it was home, sort of. In May, a month before our high school graduation, we invited our friends to the cabin for a bon fire and our “cabin-warming party.” And so it was that cool Spring night in May, our cabin had been christened

Mike, Bart and I got together when I was home on leave from the Army in October of 1976

Following our graduation from high school a month later, we all headed off in different directions. Mike worked at the local paper mill for a year before going off to college. Bart left for a technical school in Minneapolis, and I left for the Army. Gone was the day-to-day shenaningans that defined our youth. There would be no more skipping school to work on the cabin (oops, did I say that?)or evenings spent playing pool in country bars. Instead we found welcome letters in our mailboxes from time to time, recapping the recent events in each of our lives. In time Bart’s radio career would take him westward to Colorado, I would be discharged from the Army and head off to college, and Mike would spend winters in sunnier climes. The opportunities for us to get together became fewer and further between.

In the years to follow, we would all go our separate ways. Mike died in a car accident in 1986. John took over the golf course, expanded it, and ran it until a few years ago. Bart went to college off and on, picked up odd jobs, sang and played guitar in local bars, and travelled around the country. The cabin was torn down not long after Mike’s death to make way for the golf course expansion. Where it once stood is now the women’s tee on Hole #17. I have golfed there many times since then and every time I went by it, I could almost hear the voices of the past planning the next log, the next phase of building, when the only cares we had were getting the next log into place and what bar we would go to that evening. Simpler times to be sure.