Cabin, cabin, wherefore art thou?

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I spent two nights and a full day in Walker, and drank it up. I had the walleye dinner at the Bayside, a Reuben at Benson's, and a multi-course breakfast at the Chase on the Lake.

I went to church Sunday morning at Hope Lutheran -- a huge, splendid church just outside of town -- and heard a good sermon on Martha and Mary when Jesus came to visit. By arrangement I met up there with Joyce and Gary Schuette, who bought the Leech Lake cabin we'd vacationed at all our lives, in 1995.

The Schuettes said it was built in 1949, which I thought sounded too late, but my mom was 16 then, and the youngest of her three brothers was 4, so that would be about the time the parents might have  had a little free time after 16 straight years of babies, one every four years. They called the cabin Mel-O-Manse -- Melford, Orla, preacher's house, with a nod at "mellow."

The Schuettes took me out for a tour. The cabin is utterly changed. It was a one-month-a-year cottage, and now it's a year-round home for Joyce and Gary. The little lane to the house is now paved and plowed, so winter access is no longer a problem, and the house is winterized and as much a suburban home as a house in the wilderness could be.

I showed my sisters this top picture and a couple of them complained about the color. It used to be a rustic red, but I think this color -- what would you call it? taupe? -- makes it less conspicuous in the woods, more in tune with the trees, and with the house next door.

Among the many problems with the cabin before Gary -- a carpenter by trade -- transformed it, was that the floor tilted. I remembered a little goofy dancing we did back when I was in college -- really pounding hard -- and thinking: We're all going to slide down the hill! The cottage sat on stacks of blocks or stones, not a foundation, and the underspace, Gary said, when he began work on it, was infested with creatures. He also found that the beautiful stone chimney was cracked and leaking -- smoke, water -- whatever a chimney can leak. So something had to be done.

He and helpers propped up the house on posts while they dug out a basement and build a foundation; enlarged the living room space; moved the kitchen; made the screen porch a porch for all seasons; took out the funny little stairway we had that went out the hallway to the front yard and turned the space into a bath and laundry room. And they moved tons of dirt and imported tons of stones to create outdoor sitting areas, a more graceful entry, and a landscape that is not an adventure to navigate.

Gary spent over a decade on the house while Joyce continued her career in the cities, and he said if he'd known how much work it needed, he would have razed it and started fresh. So, in a way, we're lucky that it stands at all. I think the general footprint, the preserved portions, and the old-looking new stone fireplace, does evoke the way it was. Gary and Joyce said what they like about the house, what's unique about it, is that every room has a view of the water. It all faces out.

Maybe I don't have a heart, but I don't feel nostalgia for what it was. It's like cars you love -- what are you going to do, save your old cars in the attic?

Oh, and L, S, K, you'll be thrilled to know the outhouse still stands.

Thank you Gary and Joyce, for spending so much time with me on Sunday!

Here's a bunch of  pictures:

What it used to look like.
Are the people Gary and Joyce after they bought?

The new fireplace stands where the old one stood, but now serves two sides, with the room extended beyond it.

Gary preserved the floor and ceiling boards and the posts that cross the room.
This room really does look very much the same. 

This sitting area is built on the hillside in front of the cabin.

I love this stone wall.

The kitchen sits to the side, where the front bedroom/bunks were.