Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 4 : Spring 2010 | Page 17

The Log Cabin
by Edward “Ted” Blanchard

When I was in the U. S. Air Force back in 1950, I
found great interest in talking with new acquaintances about
our respective local customs and living conditions. There
was always a cabin in my life and it seemed that whenever
I started talking about this subject, it brought the response,
“Does everyone in Maine have a log cabin?”

My writing on this subject is a fact-based account
of “woods” cabins in Northern Maine. Based on personal
experience, I will attempt to relate how cabins and the
tranquil, wooded areas where they were built impacted me
as a young boy and even now into adulthood. From my first
knowledge of a log cabin in the woods with my Dad, to the
one that my son-in-law and I have today is reminiscent of
times gone by, yet times still available to some of us.

There are many “old ways” that have been forgotten
and while I still have memories of those times and ways,
I have been fortunate enough to recapture them with a
present-day, remote cabin that still bears a resemblance to
those simpler times.

The pack basket on my father’s back held a live,
unsteady cargo...Me. I was three years old, too young and
short legged to walk through uneven woods trails

Dad spent many years of his life in the Maine woods.
In his twenties, he left “civilization” to spend the harsh winter
alone in a trapper’s cabin while he made a living trapping
numerous fur-bearing animals. In the spring he returned to
town with his load of furs and untrimmed red beard.

Dad lived and worked in the woods until he was in
his early 30’s when he married and settled down to a job in
a lumber mill.

The aforementioned pack basket with me in it was
my introduction to the woods. I grew up loving the Maine
wilderness and all that it offered. Fishing, hunting, trapping
and just enjoying the peaceful trails and roads and especially
the Camp. There was always a cabin in the family. Dad and
three of his friends built a log cabin when I was very young.
It was three miles from a highway. We always walked to it
as there were no ATV’s back in the 1930’s. The cabin was
only a few hundred yards from a brook teeming with trout.
I spent many happy, memorable hours at that log cabin with
Dad and friends. Unfortunately, the cabin burned to the
ground one fall. It was not certain how the fire started.

Dad was not adverse to ignoring the laws of the day.
Sunday hunting was and is illegal in Maine. Also, there are
seasons for hunting various species. One particular day we
were coming out of the woods from Dad’s camp and noted
a partridge sunning itself on the trunk of a fallen tree. It just
happened to be closed season for hunting birds. Dad always
carried a .22 Woodsman pistol and was an exceptionally
good shot. Memory does not serve as to whether or not he
hit the bird, but he did take aim and shoot at it. Just before
we left the trail and got to the waiting car, a Game Warden
stopped us for a license check. After the formalities of this
he asked if we had seen any birds (partridge). Dad answered

in the affirmative and I thought to help out by saying that
Dad took a shot at it. I have no idea why the warden did not
pursue the subject!

For a few years I had no cabin to go to for a night
or day stay. This did not stop my hunting, fishing or tenting
out although of course, the camp itself offers its own unique
experience.

Between cabins, while in high school, my friends
and I spent many hours in two cabins. One belonged to a
friend of Dad’s which was on the old road (really on a foot
trail) that lead to Dad’s original camp that had burned.

We would load our pack baskets with food then hitch
hike, bike or walk the twelve miles of highway followed by a
one and a half mile hike through the woods to the camp.

This was back in the 1940’s and the old cabin had
seen better days. It measured only about twelve by fourteen
feet in size. The roof was low and one had to duck when
entering the door. Purlins (logs placed lengthwise in the roof
to which the roof was attached) were about the only thing
holding the roof together. The roof was made of hand-made
wooden shingles called cedar splits. The bottom logs were
resting on the ground and over the years were rotting their
way to be part of the earth from which they had originally
sprouted and grown. There were three small windows, one
in each end and one on a long wall. Two double bunks took
up much of the available floor space. A small table and even
smaller cook stove consisted of the furniture.

We especially enjoyed the camp in the fall when
winged pests were hiding under the bark of the logs getting
ready for winter. All of us carried rifles but no one ever shot
a deer from our trips at that cabin. In fact, I don’t recall ever
seeing a deer. Probably because we were too noisy as a bunch
of fun-loving, teenagers were bound to be. We spent hours
on the beech ridge gathering beech nuts. The amount of
food we consumed was unbelievable; but then, teenage boys
burn lots of calories!

A nice spring about fifty yards from the cabin
supplied us with sweet, clear, cold water. It bubbled up from
the forest floor and soon got lost as silently as it arrived.

It was at this site that one of my friends and I
introduced t ݼ