Chapter 9
IN all the hilly and mountainous States there are tracts of forest lands and waste lands of no use to the farmer and of no use to settlers, but such places offer ideal spots for summer camps for boys and naturalists, for fishermen and sportsmen, and here they may erect their cabins (_see Frontispiece_) and enjoy themselves in a healthy, natural manner. These cabins will vary according to the wants of the owners, according to the material at hand and the land upon which they are built. By extending the rafters of the roof, the latter may be extended (_see Frontispiece_) to protect the front and make a sort of piazza which may be floored with puncheons.
The logs forming the sides of the house may be allowed to extend so as to make a wall or fence, as they do on the right-hand side of the Frontispiece, thus preventing the danger of falling over the cliff upon which this cabin is perched and receiving injury or an unlooked-for ducking in the lake. They may also be extended as they are on the left, to make a shield behind which a wood-yard is concealed, or to protect an enclosure for the storage of the larger camp utensils.
In fact, this drawing is made as a suggestion and not to be copied exactly, because every spot differs from every other spot, and one wants to make one's house conform to the requirements of its location; for instance, the logs upon the right-hand side might be allowed to extend all the way up to the roof, as they do at the bottom, and thus make a cosey corner protected from the wind and storm.
The windows in such a cabin may be made very small, for all work is supposed to be done outdoors, and when more light is needed on the inside the door may be left open. In a black-fly country or a mosquito country, however, when you are out of reach of screen doors, mosquito-netting may be tacked over the windows and a portiere of mosquito-netting over the doorway.
XXXVIII
HOW TO MAKE A WYOMING OLEBO, A HOKO RIVER OLEBO, A SHAKE CABIN, A CANADIAN MOSSBACK, AND A TWO-PEN OR SOUTHERN SADDLE-BAG HOUSE
ONE of the charms of a log-cabin building is the many possibilities of novelties suggested by the logs themselves. In the hunter's cabin (_see Frontispiece_) we have seen how the ends of the logs were allowed to stick out in front and form a rail for the front stoop; the builders of the olebos have followed this idea still further.
The Wyoming Olebo
In Fig. 236 we see that the side walls of the pen are allowed to extend on each side so as to enclose a roofed-over open-air room, or, if you choose to so call it, a front porch, veranda, stoop, piazza, or gallery, according to the section of the country in which you live.
So as to better understand this cabin the plan is drawn in perspective, with the cabin above and made to appear as if some one had lifted the cabin to show the ground-floor plan underneath. The olebo roof is built upon the same plan as the Kanuck (Fig. 244), with this exception, that in Fig. 244 the rooftree or ridge-log is supported by cross logs which are a continuation of the side of the house (_A_, _A_, Figs. 242, 244, and 245), but in the olebo the ridge pole or log is supported by uprights (Figs. 236 and 237). To build the olebo lay the two side sill logs first (_A_, _B_, and _C_, _D_, Fig. 236), then the two end logs _E_, _F_, and _D_, _B_ and proceed to build the cabin as already described, allowing the irregular ends of the logs to extend beyond the cabin until the pen is completed and all is ready for the roof, after which the protruding ends of the logs _excepting the two top ones_ may be sawed off to suit the taste and convenience of the builder. The olebo may be made of any size that the logs will permit and one's taste dictate. After the walls are built, erect the log columns at _A_ and _C_ (Fig. 236), cut their tops wedge shape to fit in notches in the ends of the projecting side-plates (Fig. 144, _A_ and _B_); next lay the end plate (_G_, Fig. 236) over the two top logs on the sides of your house which correspond to the side-plates of an ordinary house. The end plate _G_ is notched to fit on top of the side-plates, and the tops of the side-plates have been scored and hewn and flattened, thus making a General Putnam joint like the one shown above (_G_, Fig. 236); but when the ends of the side logs of the cabin were trimmed off the side-plates or top side logs were allowed to protrude a foot or more beyond the others; this was to give room for the supporting upright log columns at _A_ and _C_ (see view of cabin, Fig. 236 and the front view, Fig. 237). _H_ and _J_ (Fig. 237) are two more upright columns supporting the end plate which, in turn, supports the short uprights upon which the two purlins _L_ and _M_ rest; the other purlins _K_ and _N_ rest directly upon the end plate (Fig. 237). The rear end of the cabin can have the gable logged up as the front of the house is in Fig. 240, or filled in with uprights as in Fig. 247. The roof of the olebo is composed of logs, but if one is building an olebo where it will not be subjected during the winter to a great weight of snow, one may make the roof of any material handy.
Fig. 236. Fig. 237. Fig. 238. Fig. 239. Fig. 240. Fig. 241.
Hoko River Olebo
The Hoko River olebo has logs only up to the ceiling of the first story (Fig. 238), or the half story as the case may be; this part, as you see, is covered with shakes previously illustrated and described (Figs. 127, 128, 129, and 130). The logs supporting the front of the second story serve their purpose as pillars or supports only during the winter-time, when the heavy load of snow might break off the unsupported front of the olebo. In the summer-time they are taken away and set to one side, leaving the overhang unsupported in front. The shakes on the side are put on the same as shingles, overlapping each other and breaking joints as shown in the illustration. They are nailed to the side poles, the ends of which you may see protruding in the sketch (Fig. 238).
The Mossback Cabin
In the north country, where the lumbermen are at work, the farmers or settlers are looked down upon by the lumberjacks much in the same manner as the civilians in a military government are looked down upon by the soldiers, and hence the lumberjacks have, in derision, dubbed the settlers mossbacks.
Mossback
Fig. 239 shows a mossback's house or cabin in the lake lands of Canada. The same type of house I have seen in northern Michigan. This one is a two-pen house, but the second pen is made like the front to the olebo, by allowing the logs of the walls of the house itself to extend sufficient distance beyond to make another room, pen, or division. In this particular case the settler has put a shed roof of boards upon the division, but the main roof is made of logs in the form of tiles. In Canada these are called _les auges_ (pronounced [=o]ge), a name given to them by the French settlers. The back of this house has a steeper roof than the front, which roof, as you see, extends above the ends of _les auges_ to keep the rain from beating in at the ends of the wooden troughs. Above the logs on the front side of the small room, pen, or addition the front is covered with shakes. Fig. 240 shows a cabin in the Olympic mountains, but it is only the ordinary American log cabin with a shake roof and no windows. A cooking-stove inside answers for heating apparatus and the stovepipe protrudes above the roof.
The Southern Saddle-Bag or Two-Pen Cabin
Now we come to the most delightful of all forms of a log house. The one shown in Fig. 241 is a very simple one, such as might be built by any group of boys, but I have lived in such houses down South that were very much more elaborate. Frequently they have a second story which extends like the roof over the open gallery between the pens; the chimneys are at the gable ends, that is, on the outside of the house, and since we will have quite a space devoted to fireplaces and chimneys, it is only necessary to say here that in many portions of the South the fireplaces, while broad, are often quite shallow and not nearly so deep as some found in the old houses on Long Island, in New York, and the Eastern States. The open gallery makes a delightful, cool lounging place, also a place for the ladies to sit and sew, and serves as an open-air dining-room during the warm weather; this sort of house is inappropriate and ill fitted for the climate which produced the olebo, the mossback, and the Kanuck, but exactly suited for our Southern States and very pleasant even as far north as Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I have lived in one part of every summer for the last twenty-two years in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania. The saddle-bag may be built by boys with the two rooms ten by ten and a gallery six feet wide, or the two rooms six by six and a gallery five feet wide; the plan may be seen on the sketch below the house (Fig. 241).
Where you only expect to use the house in the summer months, a two-pen or saddle-bag can be used with comfort even in the Northern States, but in the winter-time in such States as Michigan and part of New York, the gallery would be filled up with drifting snow.
XXXIX
NATIVE NAMES FOR THE PARTS OF A KANUCK LOG CABIN, AND HOW TO BUILD ONE
IF the writer forgets himself once in a while and uses words not familiar to his boy readers, he hopes they will forgive him and put all such slips down as the result of leaving boys' company once in a while and associating with men. The reader knows that men dearly love big, ungainly words and that just as soon as boys do something worth while the men get busy hunting up some top-heavy name for it.
When one is talking of foreign things, however, it is well to give the foreign names for those things, and, since the next house to be described is not a real American one but a native of Canada, the Canadian names are given for its parts. While in northern Quebec, making notes for the Kanuck, the writer enlisted the interest of a fellow member of the Camp-Fire Club of America, Doctor Alexander Lambert, and through him secured the names of all parts of the Canadian shack.
The author is not a French-Canadian, and, although, like most of his readers, he studied French at school, what he learned of that great language is now securely locked up in one of the safe-deposit vaults of his brain and the key lost.
He owns up to his ignorance because he is a scout and would not try to deceive his readers, also because if the reader's knowledge of French enables him to find some error, the writer can sidestep the mistake and say, "'Tain't mine." But, joking aside, these names are the ones used in the Province of Quebec and are here given not because they are good French but because they are the names used by the builders among the natives known by the Indians as _les habitants_
Local Names of Parts of Cabin
spruce epinette balsam sapin to chop boucher, Figs. 113 and 122 to cut couper logs les bois or les billots, _A_, _A_, _A_, Figs. 242, 245, also 119, 126, etc. square carre door porte, Figs. 242, 243 window chassis, Fig. 243 window-glass les vitres, 242 the joist on which the floor is laid les traverses, Fig. 49, _B_, _B_, _B_, _B_, Fig. 244 the floor itself plancher the purlins, that is, the two big logs used to support the roof les poudres, _C_, _C_, Fig. 244 the roof couverture, Fig. 242 bark ecorce birch bark bouleau the poles put on a birch-bark roof to keep the bark flat les peches, Figs. 41, 234, 242 the hollow half-logs sometimes used like tiling on a roof les auges, Fig. 246 piazza, porch, front stoop, veranda galerie, Figs. 236, 237, and 241
The only thing that needs explanation is the squaring of the round logs of the cabin. For instance, instead of leaving the logs absolutely round and untouched inside the camp, after the logs are placed, they are squared off so as to leave a flat surface (Fig. 125). They call this the _carreage_. I do not know whether this is a local name or whether it is an expression peculiar to that Quebec section of Canada or whether it is simply a corruption of better French. It is derived from the word _carrer_, to square.
Fig. 242. Fig. 243. Fig. 244. Fig. 245. Fig. 246. Fig. 247.
Fig. 248. Fig. 249.
The perspective drawings (Figs. 242 and 243) show views of the cabin we call the Kanuck. The pen is built exactly as it is built in the houses already described. The windows are placed where the builder desires, as is also the doorway, but when the side-plate logs, that is
Les Traverses
or top side logs, are put in place, then the traverses logs (_B_, _B_, _B_, _B_, Fig. 244) are laid across the pen from one side-plate to the other, their ends resting on top of the side-plates over the traverses logs, the two purlins
Les Poudres
(_C_, _C_, Fig. 244) are notched and fitted, and over their ends the two pieces _D_, _D_ are fitted, and, resting on the centres of the _D_ logs, the ridge log (_E_, Fig. 244) is placed.
Couverture
The roof is made of small logs flattened on the under-side or left in their rounded form (Fig. 242) and laid from the ridge logs down, extending over the eaves six or more inches.
Les Peches
The roof logs are then held in place by poles pegged with wooden pegs to the roof (_F_, _G_, Fig. 242).
Roofing Material
The roof is now covered with a thick layer of browse, hay, straw, dry leaves, or dry grass, and on top of this moist blue clay, yellow clay, hard-pan, or simple mud is spread and trampled down hard, forcing the thatch underneath into all the cracks and crannies and forming a firm covering of clay several inches thick.
Fireplace
The fireplace and chimney may be built inside or outside the cabin, or the house may be heated by a stove and the stovepipe allowed to protrude through a hole in the roof large enough to separate the pipe a safe distance from the wood and straw and amply protected by a piece of sheet iron or tin. Then, after you have stored your _butin_ (luggage), you can sit and sing:
You may pull the _sourdine_ out You may push the _rabat-joie_ in But the _boucan_ goes up the _cheminee_ just the same Just the same, just the same, But the _boucan_ goes up the _cheminee_ just the same.
When "l'habitant" hears you sing this verse he will not know what your song is about, but he will slap you on the back, laugh, and call you _Bon Homme chez nous_, but do not get mad at this; it is a compliment and not a bad name.
Clay Roof
A clay roof should be as flat as possible with only pitch enough to shed the water; a shingle roof should have a rise of at least one foot high to four feet wide and a thatched roof should have a rise of 45 deg., that is, the rise of a line drawn from corner to corner of a square.
Fig. 247 shows a gable filled with upright logs and Fig. 248 shows a tar paper roof and a gable covered with tar paper.
Since Kanucks are cold-climate houses, they frequently have novel means of keeping them warm; one way that I have frequently seen used is to surround them with a log fence shown in Fig. 249, and pack the space between with stable manure or dirt and rotten leaves.
XL
HOW TO MAKE A POLE HOUSE AND HOW TO MAKE A UNIQUE BUT THOROUGHLY AMERICAN TOTEM LOG HOUSE
A POLE house is a log house with the logs set upright. We call it a pole house because, usually, the logs are smaller than those used for a log house. The pole house (Fig. 250) is built in the manner shown by Figs. 171, 172, and 173, but in the present instance the ridge-pole is a log which is allowed to extend some distance beyond the house both in front and rear, and the front end of the ridge-pole is carved in the shape of a grotesque or comical animal's head like those we see on totem-poles. The roof is made of shakes (see Figs. 126 to 130) and the shakes are held in place by poles pegged onto the roof in much the same manner as we have described and called _les peches_ for the Kanuck. This pole cabin may have an old-fashioned Dutch door which will add to its quaintness and may have but one room which will answer the many purposes of a living-room, sleeping-room, and dining-room. A lean-to at the back can be used for a kitchen.
American Totem Log House
But if you really want something unique, build a log house on the general plan shown by Figs. 251 and 252; then carve the ends of all the extending logs to represent the heads of reptiles, beasts, or birds; also carve the posts which support the end logs on the front gallery, porch, or veranda in the form of totem-poles. You may add further to the quaint effect by placing small totem-posts where your steps begin on the walk (Fig. 253) and adding a tall totem-pole (Fig. 255) for your family totem or the totem of your clan. Fig. 252 shows how to arrange and cut your logs for the pens. The dining-room is supposed to be behind the half partition next to the kitchen; the other half of this room being open, with the front room, it makes a large living-room. The stairs lead up to the sleeping-rooms overhead; the latter are made by dividing the space with partitions to suit your convenience.
Before Building
Take your jack-knife and a number of little sticks to represent the logs of your cabin; call an inch a foot or a half inch a foot as will suit your convenience and measure all the sticks on this scale, using inches or parts of inches for feet. Then sit down on the ground or on the floor and experiment in building a toy house or miniature model until you make one which is satisfactory. Next glue the little logs of the pen together; but make the roof so that it may be taken off and put on like the lid to a box; keep your model to use in place of an architect's drawing; the backwoods workmen will understand it better than they will a set of plans and sections on paper. Fig. 251 is a very simple plan and only put here as a suggestion. You can put the kitchen at the back of the house instead of on one side of it or make any changes which suit your fancy; the pen of the house may be ten by twelve or twenty by thirty feet, a camp or a dwelling; the main point is to finish your house up with totems as shown by Fig. 253, and then tell the other fellows where you got the idea.
Fig. 250. Fig. 251. Fig. 252. Fig. 253. Fig. 254. Fig. 255.
Peeled Logs
For any structure which is intended to be permanent never use the logs with bark on them; use _peeled_ logs. When your house is finished it may look very fresh and new without bark, but one season of exposure to the weather will tone it down so that it will be sufficiently rustic to please your fancy, but if you leave the bark on the logs, a few seasons will rot your house down, making it _too_ rustic to suit any one's fancy.
Lay up the pen of this house as already described and illustrated by Figs. 229, 233, etc., and when the sides and front walls have reached the desired height, frame your roof after the manner shown by Fig. 49 or any of the other methods described which may suit your fancy or convenience, but in this case we use the Susitna form for the end plates, which are made by first severing the root of a tree and leaving an elbow or bend at the end of the trunk (Fig. 264). This is flattened by scoring and hewing as is described and illustrated under the heading of the Susitna house. The elbows at the terminals of the end plate are carved to represent grotesque heads (Fig. 253). The house when built is something like the Wyoming olebo (Fig. 236), but with the difference which will appear after careful inspection of the diagram. The Wyoming olebo is a one-story house; this is a two-story house. The Wyoming olebo has a roof built upon a modified plan of a Kanuck; this roof is built on the American log-cabin plan, with the logs continued up to the top of the gable, as are those in the Olympic (Fig. 240). But the present house is supposed to be _very carefully_ built; to be sure, it is made of rude material but handled in a very neat and workmanlike manner. Great care must be used in notching and joining the logs, and only the straightest logs which can be had should be used for the walls of the house. The piazza may need some additional supports if there is a wide front to the house, but with a narrow front half, log puncheons will be sufficiently stiff to support themselves.
Totems
The most difficult part about these descriptions, for the writer, is where he attempts to tell you how to make your totems; but remember that a totem, in order to have a _real_ totem look, must be very crude and amateurish, a quality that the reader should be able to give it without much instruction. The next important thing is that when you make one side of a head, be it a snake's, a man's, a beast's, or a bird's, make the other side like it. Do not make the head lopsided; make both sides of the same proportions. Flatten the sides of the end of the log enough to give you a smooth surface, then sketch the profile on each side of the log with charcoal or chalk, carve out the head with a chisel, drawing-knife, and jack-knife, and gouge until you have fashioned it into the shape desired. In order to do this the end of the log should be free from the ground and a convenient distance above it. The carving is best done after the house is practically finished; but the two end plates had better be carved before they are hoisted into place.
Totem-Poles
When you carve out the totem-poles (Fig. 256 or 262), the log had better be put on an elongated sawbuck arrangement which will hold it free from the ground and allow one to turn it over as the work may require. Fig. 259 represents a peeled log. On this log one may sketch, with chalk, the various figures here represented, then begin by notching the log (Fig. 258) according to the notches which are necessary to carve out the totem. Figs. 260, 261, and 262 show different views of the same totem figures. Fig. 257 shows how to make a variation of the totem-pole. Paint your totem heads and figures red, blue, and yellow, and to suit your fancy; the more startling they are the better will they imitate the Indian totems. The weather will eventually tone them down to the harmonious colors of a Turkish rug.