Up north where I go to make things happen you have to do a lot of manual labor. We dig in the dirt. We move rocks. We move gravel. We cut down trees. We cut, haul and burn brush. We split logs and we do a lot of ancillary things like painting, beginner plumbing, beginner electricity, and beginning carpentry. We should buy stock in over-the-counter pain killers.
This year when we opened up, we had both docks destroyed by the ice. One deck was destroyed by the one hundred and eighty-some inches of snow we received when it avalanched off the new metal roof we put on. The ice and snow build up on trees in the forest and when the wind blows, they crack. You can walk through the woods by our place and see downed trees everywhere. Two years ago, a massive white pine just toppled over when I was standing in our parking lot.
Ah, springtime in northern Minnesota.
My grandfather built a cabin 50 years ago near the Gunflint Trail and I have been coming up here almost every summer since I was 10. Now I own one of the two cabins my family owns. My wife and I basically operate and take care of both of them. We have gut rehabbed both of them over the past five years.
This is far from everywhere. The closest “city” is Duluth, MN, or Thunder Bay, Canada. This is not an easy place to get to. This is especially true coming from Las Vegas. When I lived in Chicago it was a 9-hour drive. I have driven down one day and back the next. Not fun but doable. Our road is private, and no one plows it in winter. Neither of our cabins is winterized and most cabins on this end of the lake aren’t either.
When we rehabbed, we ran electricity to both cabins and put 1 gig fiber internet in them. We also dug wells for water. One cabin has an artesian well. The other doesn’t. We used to get our water from a natural spring on a hill, but one year we ran out. Can’t take the risk of that happening!
Opening up was a challenge this year because of the damage to the docks and deck, but also we had some plumbing leaks. When we came up in June, the bugs were horrible and this entire summer the mosquitoes have been next level. We received another half inch of rain…again. We close up soon because we have to be in Las Vegas. Have a grandchild being born!
Believe me, we have fun doing other stuff too. Most evenings, we are the only boat on the lake. But, there is no free lunch up here and daily living is indeed a lot of work.
Sometimes you have to be opportunistic. One of my neighbors built a brand new cabin. To build it, he had to cut down about a third of an acre of old maple trees to have a level spot to build on. He decided to build his cabin 100% electric, so he didn’t need to maple for firewood. Since he wants it off his property, and since I need maple for firewood, there is a perfect bargain to be had. My sweat equity. If you haven’t cut timber, it’s not an easy job.
By the way, Caribou Cream maple syrup is the best syrup in the world. It’s not close, but I digress.
In the process, he had some really big ones that I decided to turn into end tables for our home in Las Vegas. We will see if I can haul them away to make some lumber to turn into a maple kitchen table for one cabin. The smaller ones we cut up and split for firewood.
This is what the maple looked like right after I cut it. It’s pretty sweet. Spalted maple and it has curly maple in it.
It was so big I couldn’t get it in my pickup so I dollied it up the hill and the quarter mile down to my place.
The first step is to get all the bark off.
Then you sand, sand, sand! Then sand again. I took it to a guy’s house who had a band saw. We cut it on each end to make sure it was perfectly level.
The next step was to put bow ties in. You put them in so the wood doesn’t split. In this case, I took them to Noah who I found on Facebook. He made them out of birch. I don’t own a router, nor do I own a band saw so I would have had to buy all that stuff. Instead, I outsourced it. Here are the bow ties going in.
The next step is to keep sanding! I sanded up to 280 grit because I want it to be super smooth. I used a random orbital sander, and 3M purple. That sandpaper is the bomb. Thank you Charles Cable. I tried to use a battery-powered belt sander to get chainsaw marks off and found that using a corded sander worked best. Battery-powered ones crap out too fast.
You have to decide on a finish. We want the natural color of the wood to come through. We also don’t want a poly finish since they chip and you have to sand the whole thing off and refinish. The logs are dry, but not bone dry. There is still some moisture coming out of them. When they sit in Las Vegas for a month, they will be ready. We will probably finish it with clear tung oil, but it’s to be determined.
We will buy some chrome or stainless legs and it will be finished.
My wife is building a coffee table. I am helping a little with it. It’s a northern white cedar root with some history. A family member had a bit of a late-night fire that didn’t stay in the firepit. There might have been alcohol involved. The next morning, my wife, my cousin, my uncle, and I spent about 5 hours putting the small fire out and had to cut some roots out to do it. Fire gets into the peat of a forest and spreads underground! We didn’t have electricity, a water pump, or working chainsaws at the time so we had to do it all by hand and buckets. This is one of those roots.
It got the bandsaw treatment too. It’s level on both sides.
We will have to put a couple of bowties in it as well. It will sit about 14 inches off the ground and once the glass gets put on be a perfect size along with being a great conversation piece.
We don’t know which way this thing will sit yet. That gets figured out once we get all the bark and dead wood off.
What did you do over the summer?
Love the Cheech & Chong reference in the title of the blog (yes, I'm old enough to recognize it). at least you weren't hanging out at the bus station. Great stuff as Up North can bring some challenges but in the end it's worth it. Appreciate you sharing business/market insights and the occasional stuff like this to lighten the load.
How’s the fishing in your lake? Would be great to have some fresh walleye available for dinner!