Cabin Country: A place in the Chippewa Forest is 'the place just right'

When I took early retirement in 1997, my wife said, "Remember how on all those canoe camping trips we dreamed about having a summer cabin in the woods? Maybe we could do that now."

She was right! So we looked in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and then in Wisconsin. Nothing. We ended up in Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest, where we had honeymooned 35 years earlier. We'd about given up our dream when, at the end of the second day, we found it: a cedar-sided house with beautiful pine ceilings, in the forest and on a gorgeous, clear lake.

What had been a small cabin had been converted into a cabinlike house. The outhouse still existed, but now there was indoor plumbing, central heat, and other amenities. We loved it at first sight. But we were torn. To realize our old canoeing fantasy we would have to choose to move away from our happy Ohio home of 25 years, a major life change for us both.

We chose right. Now we have summers of fishing, long walks, canoeing local lakes, and listening to loons at night. In the fall, we are dazzled by the changing colors of the Chippewa. During the winter, we snowshoe and ice-fish. Back inside, we sit around our little wood stove and read books we have too long ignored. The annual high point of our lives here are long summer visits from up to 11 family members. The grandkids catch sunnies off our dock. There's swimming and tubing. We especially enjoy our family campfires with lots of laughs, ghost stories, and the inevitable s'mores.

I'm reminded of the old Shaker hymn: "When we find ourselves in the place just right, t'will be in the valley of love and delight."

Jack Nachbar, Bigfork, Minn.