Cabin Country: A Loon Lodge II (or at least an additional dwelling) became a need

As a follow-up to a Cabin Country story published in 2015 ("Building on a 40-Year Hobby"), our cabin continued to bulge at the seams. Our 13 grandkids got bigger and the family tradition of everyone racing up to the cabin whenever possible only intensified. We needed more room.

I needed to build another cabin but felt it needed to be something special. An idea for "something special" came while on a trip to Canada. We passed through Big Falls, Minn., and saw someone building a unique log building in the middle of town. This cabin had very large cedar logs that artistically poked out in the corners. Although a cedar log building will last much longer than a pine one, it's more challenging to build and it can be difficult to find the logs. As the guy said at the log build, "the local sawmill claims they go through 100 cedar logs to find one big enough and straight enough for Jim's log buildings."

It turned out that Jim Olson, the builder, said he might be willing to sell the partly built cabin. I took pictures and we continued on our way. I couldn't get the cedar log building out of my mind. I felt I had to bite the bullet and pay premium price for this partly built, hand-scribed and cut-cedar log building, knowing that I wanted to make this cabin special.

Later, Jim labeled each log for reassembly, and a logging truck hauled the logs 80 miles down to our cabin site south of Big Fork. Jim, with a few risky maneuvers and using mechanical advantage to its fullest, reassembled the logs with our help on our foundation.

We framed up the top level, and used cedar boards, of course, for the siding and paneling. We are now able to accommodate our entire family at Loon lodge with ease.

Ron Kannas, Minneapolis