Preparations
2005 was a pretty exciting year and focused on finishing the 4^th cabin and putting up the lodge building.  For this I needed professional help.  The cabin kits were easy enough to assemble after I got foundation instructions from my parents, but the lodge building was another question.  The design was a standard 2X4 frame rectangle, as simple as can be, but I clearly needed someone who knew what they were doing.  Glenn suggested I chat with his friend Rob Carpenter (aka Carp), who had spent several years in the construction business and built Glenn's family cabin at St. James Bay.   We met a few times and chatted about the project and I agreed to put together a four person, four day work party in June.  In the spring I did as much as possible in preparation for the big event. 

A big surprise came on the first trip down when I found the huge spruce tree behind Cottonwood Cabin on the ground.  It grew about 20 feet uphill from the cabin and was enormous--clearly the matriarch of the compound.  Its rotten core had sloughed away long ago to create a huge, dry hollow about six feet tall and three feet square where I used to store my tools before the first cabin was built.  The tree fell upriver parallel to the shore (quite against all expectation) and managed to lodge itself between two smaller trees which prevented its rolling downhill more than a few feet.  If it had fallen downhill or rolled any distance it would have taken out both Cottonwood and Mink cabins (see photo to right of Cottonwood cabin from the base of the fallen tree); as it was, a few branches leaned against Mink but there was no damage.  I was awed, and extremely grateful.  It's a pretty cool addition to the property, but took out the trail between Mink and Murrelet cabins and scrunched the generator shed, though the generator miraculously survived.  Baby trees have already started to grow on top.

In the 2005 section I'll include a few more journal entries.  This first one starts with a description of clearing the lumber and other materials from the future location of the lodge building:

4/17/05
I've been working myself to the bone.  I got here around 8:00 amyesterday and by three had entirely cleared the lodge site--first the plywood and door, then the siding (after jury-rigging a flat spot for them to the side), then the roofing, and then the entire 4^th cabin.  The hardest part was moving the platforms that the kits came on--they are very heavy and get caught up on the ground.  I was ready to give up when I noticed a ladder and thought of the Egyptians [moving giant stones over logs].  Amazingly, the first platform slid with ease on the ladder, taking it along all the way to the 2^nd outhouse [about 30 feet away] where it now sits with cabin 4 on top.  The other two [platforms] weren't set up so well, and wound up in the bushes to the side.  I took a quick nap in the afternoon before starting the first [foundation] hole [for the lodge].  Everything was how I left it, the stove started right up, and so on.  I dug six holes today (including the one I started yesterday), cleared off several pieces of the forest under the big tree, and tonight I hung some pictures and my whale poster and tidied the cabins.  I made stuffing and ate it in front of a little fire.

The next entry describes my effort to get all the extra lumber on site necessary to complete the lodge.  The materials list was generated after thorough study of the plans, the list the engineer put together, my inventory of the lumber on site, and discussions with my parents and  Carp.  The materials were meant to share a landing craft with a Fish & Game group that was building a camp at the mouth of Snettisham to study marbled murrelets, but the barge owner was worried about overloading the barge and we had to reschedule for a private charter (see photo to right).

5/11/05
Went to the homestead with Nicole and Mom over the weekend (5/7-8/05).  Loaded Doug's landing craft Friday night with Dan, the girls, Nicole, Peter M. and my parents at Douglas.  Next day we were meant to fly with Jack Hodges in 57Z [my father's plane] but one of the magnetos was out so we rushed to the airport and went to every charter operator.  We finally got Wilson Air to fly from Gustavus to Juneau to get us.  Alaska Seaplanes took us back--a bit more expensive trip than anticipated ($705).  Doug had been there a few hours and had started unloading.  We finished in half an hour, then spent most of the afternoon humping all ~6,000 lbs. of materials up the hill [beach].  We also liberated the genset [from under the fallen tree] which magnificently started w/o a hitch.  Sunday we squared and cut the four corner [posts] of the lodge (barely had to excavate one hole) and came close to the next two.  A beaver swam by midmorning.  Saturday night I cooked a Sweetheart sockeye and we saw a bear upriver near the island.  Also found a bear bed between two roots just beyond where I'd stacked the pile of siding which had nine piles of scat next to it.  Very comfy, though, nothing pointy [in the bear bed] at all.  Saw the eagles mate in the top of a spruce as we waited for the plane.

5/30/05
Memorial Day.  Heading down to the homestead just for the day to haul as much of Cabin 4 to its site as possible.  I lined up my folks, Larry, and Melissa to go down in the boat and help out next weekend, but with only a day and a half (and the deck [floor] to finish first) I wanted to get a head start.  And, of course, hauling lumber isn't much fun, so I thought I'd try to take the brunt of it.  It's raining pretty steady, but maybe it'll break enough for me to cut the floor joists.

I spent a three day weekend by myself down there last weekend.  In retrospect, I accomplished much, especially considering I was alone.  I finished digging holes and put every post in place (though I lacked brackets for the last two).  Day one I squared all the outside posts, day two I dug the inside holes [the lodge required three rows of five posts] and spent the afternoon resquaring everything and tacking them together for some stability.  Left most unburied out of paranoia.  Carp says it's a good idea, so I'll leave them except the ones I'm really embarrassed about.  I spent a lot of time on my knees scraping out rocks with my fingers.  It wasn't pretty or fun...most discouraging, actually....On the third day I worked on the foundation for Hermit Thrush cabin [cabin 4], amazingly managing to secure the rim joists in place, both leveling the joists and cutting the posts with a chainsaw.  And I buried the posts.  That was the first glimmer of accomplishment, and I felt okay by the time I left.  I also made a shower out of the second outhouse [by hanging a shower bag and wrapping the frame in a tarp].  On the way home I drank a beer and ate a whole chocolate bar and felt okay for the first time all weekend.

On Memorial Day I did manage to haul nearly the entire cabin kit from Home Depot to the fourth cabin site in six hours (everything but the big windows, the door, and metal roofing).  The four diet cokes I drank in the afternoon surely helped (I'd accidentally left my water in the plane) but kept me awake late into the evening!  That day I also cut the rim joists to fit the foundation, hauled them up, and prepared the other cabins for guests.

The next weekend, my parents came down in their boat with Melissa and me and we put up the entire fourth cabin.  It had its own series of frustrations, including dealing with a board that had no holes drilled in it for the metal rods that fit in the walls, and also trying to fit in the custom 2X6 that I'd created the previous fall to replace the missing one which was of entirely different girth from the kit logs.  It too needed holes drilled in it.  Amazingly, we managed to get the whole cabin done minus the metal roofing before we left early afternoon on Sunday.

My eagerness to complete the fourth cabin was entirely because I wanted cabins for all my crew when the next big work party took place later in June.  In the end, the group consisted of Glenn, Carp, Carp's sister Traci, and myself (see photo below of the crew on the way down).

Work Party
6/19/05
Work party is over.  Much work, a little fun in the evenings.  Except for the obvious, I think the best time was had drinking beer and playing hacky sack on the brand new deck at the end of day two.  We headed down in Rob's new boat, sucking down beers between bumps--I didn't realize it but I was half drunk (okay, pretty drunk) by the time we got there.  Steaks and scrumptious mushrooms/onions/peapods that night (ramen form me), then to our cabins at midnight.  Learned the next morning how to brew coffee from Traci.  Had a late breakfast of potatoes, steaks, and omelets while Glenn hauled the roofing up to his cabin [cabin 4] and Rob got to work thinking.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  After a slow start, we got into a groove.  Rob & Traci plumbing and shifting around the foundation posts, Glenn and I making beams in the sunshine (see photos below).  It was a pleasant day's work, ending with all posts staked and marked for cuts & buried.  We went out in [Rob's boat] for a swim.  I leaped in (sans sun) and had the breath taken out of me by the cold river water.  Glenn was in and out in a heartbeat.  The current was ripping out but I stayed in long enough to wash my hair.  Took me hours to warm up truly....  A pleasant, if short, evening, though I had to get up sooner than I wanted.  Rob beat me to the coffee, but needed cups which were inside my cabin.

It was overcast and breezy--not bad weather for working.  Glenn and I got things set up for joists (we'd nailed hangers into uncut joists the day before) and marked cut lines all around the posts.  Cut with Rob's skill saw and sawzall easily and cleanly.  The four of us easily hauled the massive beams in place & toenailed them in.  Glenn cut joists, I marked the beams for hanging, and we all nailed them in while Rob tried to square the beams up.  We had a hot lunch of fried rice and put on the plywood smoothly in the afternoon, the boys hauling, whacking, & cutting while T. and I nailed them in.  Then a great hour of hack...

I cleaned up and got dinner started while Carp and Glenn checked shrimp pots--nada.  It was raining so we set up a fire in the driest part of the woods by my cabin where I camped once in the rain.  G. dug out some flat spots for the chairs.  It was very comfy.  I made smoked salmon fettuccine w/zucchini, lettuce/tomato/avocado and French bread.  It was delicious and won best dinner of the trip award.  I was very flattered.  Lack of sleep and stress were starting to get to me that night....

      

Up again with coffee the next morning (see photo below of crew on the rocky point).  At 3:15 am I heard a noise outside--no people or bear, but a shadow passed in front of the door knob which turned out to be a mouse!....

The day started slow with all of us trying to figure out what to do while Carp drew lines on the floor and put plates together [top and bottom plates for the walls].  We were short some pieces and had to fill in with PT 2X4s [I'd bought] for the decks.  We figured out where the 2^nd door would go and how high the windows should be.  I made quesadillas for lunch...which we ate in the sunshine on the deck.  Glenn and Traci cut a bunch of branches that morning and G. and I stacked lumber.  After lunch we framed the back wall, put it up, then framed the side wall and left it down (w/o felt or siding) for the night.  Then we took a boat ride into the Speel Arm [the other side of Port Snettisham] to check it out.  It had been sunny all day, but pouring by the time we'd checked the shrimp pots.  We had dinner under shelter again that night....

Bone crushing weariness the next day.  Got all the walls up (see photo below), whacking away one at a time.  Between times we stacked lumber away and I cleaned up and made another quesadilla lunch.  It rained all day.  We pulled away, all loaded down, at 4:05 pm, for a smooth ride home. 

    

7/19/05
Larry and I were going to spend the weekend bopping around the homestead, kayaking and putting the roof on Hermit Thrush.  At the last minute (Friday), Carp called to say that his carpenter friend Jim Bradley wanted to come along so we shifted plans.  Then Mark got busy flying for F&G so we wound up heading down in [Rob's boat].  It was a flawless night, glassy water, blue skies, mountains you could die for....by the next morning, an even more dramatically beautiful day with fog all over the river....

I wasn't up late Friday, and there was no roaring campfire....the next day we put on the front porch with Jim's help while Carp put on the ceiling joists and worked on a rafter template.  They worked till eight, after which they joined us around the dry campfire....

 We didn't help the boys much on Sunday, but cleaned and relaxed a little.  The porch looks great, now that the braces are off and the area cleaned up a little.  Another two days or so and Rob should have the roof on---maybe sometime in August.

The next entry references Icy Straits Lumber, a mill located in Hoonah (a village in Northern Southeast Alaska).  Rob had suggested that I spruce up the porch by using rough cut cedar which I purchased there.  The cedar, I believe, is from Prince of Wales Island.

9/11/05
Larry, Dru, Melissa, Carp and I went down to Snettisham to work on the roof, down Friday, back Sunday....We burnt a sterno log just for the fun of it Friday night, then had pork chops, zucchini, stuffing and cheesecake on Saturday.  The whole trip went amazingly well, smoother than any other, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  Saturday we did lookouts, blocked (see photo to left), and Rob replaced a rotten section of the beam with cedar from [Icy Straits Lumber] (I'd spent much of Friday in Seattle on the phone with willing companies, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. looking for quotes for lumber.  [Icy Straits Lumber] was going to match their rates, but I had to get them.  Then I ordered cedar for the porch roof, rough cut, to make it pretty and get it there in time for that weekend).  That was all we used the cedar for that weekend, but at least we got it down there.  We split the load between the Ronquil [my skiff] and Rob's boat.  We loaded the Ronquil down pretty good and came down in 2-3 foot seas.  We had to have the center window down for the beams and rafters, so water was spraying in.

Anyway, we all worked hard in the morning.  Melissa and I cut blocking while Larry put them in.  Dru was helping Rob put the sub-fascia on.  Eventually I got up and nailed in the whole north side of the blocking.  For about an hour in the afternoon, L., Melissa and I relaxed while Dru finished the sub-fascia with Rob. I can't recall when we started putting roofing on--probably that afternoon, but Melissa and Dru and I did a lot.  Quite pleasant to work on the roof.  Melissa and I tarpapered the north side and [we] started putting on metal roofing (Carp and I w/Larry on the ground) while Dru and Melissa finished nailing off the plywood on the other side.  Then Melissa and I tarpapered the other side while Dru and Carp finished the metal.  We had to make holes with a hammer and nail first, a lesson gratefully learned from putting on the other roofing.  M. and I were quite the tarpapering team.  It was one of the more enjoyable work days.

On Sunday it poured in the morning (starting the evening before as we got genuinely damp around the "dry" firepit).  We covered ourselves in rain gear and went back to the roof.  Carp had quite reasonably suggested that we work on weatherproofing the main lodge and wait to do the porch until later.  That way we get the really important part under metal.  He and I finished metalling the south side while the others worked below putting the cedar inside the building and doing other errands.  I'm thinking we must have done a lot of the roofing that morning.  Anyway, Carp and I were also a good team and Dru brought us sheets as we needed them.  It went fast....We left that afternoon around three, us following Carp's boat through the 3-4 foot seas.  It was quite a wild ride!  I did my best to control the throttle so we slid down the leeward side of the swells and gained speed to keep up with the other boat when we could.  The best times were when I came in really close and was able to surf behind him, almost dangerously close.  They left us behind a few times, which made me realize just how helpful his breaking the waves was.  There had been whales in Stephen's Passage between Grand Island and Snettisham all the way down...but... it was too choppy to pursue.  On the way back, just north of Grand Island we saw a series of full-on breaches.  Judging by the size and the fact that the group had seen some on the way down, I think it was a mother and calf breaching together.  They had some down time for a long time, then took up breaching again.  We still made it to Juneauin about an hour and a half.

Labor Day Weekend....the weather was gorgeous and the water flat calm so L. and I headed to the homestead.  It was one of those stunning September days.  The water south of Grand Island was FAC [flat ass calm] and across the way a row of blows rose up I couldn't resist.  We headed over into a loose group of at least 40 whales feeding around South Island.  Blows were everywhere.  We crept right in behind a few pairs as they fluked, close enough that part of the tail was cut off in the photo [no zoom].  We got misted...

Close to shore we approached a mom and calf and another, but they disappeared as we approached.  A few minutes later the calf did a full breach about 30 feet from the boat and we both got looks at it!  Immediately, whether it was related or not, the nearby 20 whales all turned and headed north, many passing close behind the boat while we were shut down.  It was hard to pull myself away, but we arrived on site at about noon.  I was hungry so we walked out to the point for lunch and heard crashing and whooshing from above.  I creeped up and saw the eaglet standing in the bushes toward the freshet!...We'd heard him crying in the trees on the other side of the creek the last time we were there. 

      

After lunch we put the fascia boards on cabin 4, then I put on the metal roofing while Larry put on the last two door knobs.  It all happened very quickly and smoothly.  I even put clasps on [Murrelet's] windows so they don't bang whenever we open the door.  And the door doesn't stick anymore.  We headed back late that afternoon and cruised by the whales again for some more fantastic looks....

Now we're back to this weekend.  Rob and I left at 9:45 Friday in the fog, and reached Snettisham in glorious September sunshine.  The whales had moved to the mainland side around the mouth of Snettisham.  What a cool place that is!  The water was all silty and the whales not too cooperative, but Rob did let me take the wheel for a while.  That afternoon we got the beams in and the four rafters up (see photos).  The rough hewn cedar is gorgeous.  The next morning the weather was overcast but pleasant.  We put the barge rafter on, then the north side paneling.  Gorgeous.  While Rob worked on paneling the other side, I tarpapered.  Most of the time, though, I was on the ground running errands, handing things up and cleaning.  I raked under the cabin, clipped up all the roots, and stowed the kayaks there. I did other bits of tidying up and put some of the items under the tarp inside.  I also organized and swept the whole interior.  We had only enough time after putting on the metal roofing for a quick beer on the porch before we headed out at six.  The porch looks fantastic. 

A few weeks later, my mother, Larry, Melissa, and Andy spent a day at the lodge buttoning things up for the winter.  The metal roofing hung over the ends of the rafters more than a foot, making them susceptible to bending under the weight of winter snow, so we cut them off.  My mother had found electric tin snips at Tyler Rental, but they were in the shop on the day we left, so we substituted with a "nibbler."  This little device makes little hole-punch sized holes in metal which, when applied with forward momentum, will cut off a strip of metal.  I clipped into a friend's painting harness that I borrowed, tied myself off to a tree on one side of the roof, and sprawled out at the end of the other.  It was scary and exhausting and the first side of the roof was very sloppy indeed.  The second side was better, but I was aching and thoroughly worn out by balancing on the roof and holding an increasingly heavy tool over the edge of the chasm.  When it was all done I spent the last few minutes screwing a tarp onto the porch roof and securing it on the ground in the hopes of protecting the untreated cedar over the winter (see photo of us wading out to the airplane at th end of the day).