Johnson Tourist Cabin, Chippewa Harbor

The Holger Johnson family resided in Chippewa Harbor for the first half of the twentieth century, remaining for a few years even after Isle Royale became a national park in 1940.  The family built several buildings in Chippewa Harbor, including a schoolhouse and a resort with seven tourist cabins.  Today only one of the tourist cabins remains.  As time went on, it was often referred to (incorrectly) as "the schoolhouse" because some of the school desks had ended up being placed there after the other buildings were torn down.

The remaining cabin was probably left standing for use as a ranger station in the early years of the park.  In recent years, it has not been used for anything in particular.  But interest has been growing in preserving the cultural heritage of Isle Royale, as well as its natural beauty.  So our work assignment was to put a new roof on this last remaining cabin and repair the windows and the holes in the floor.

Below are some pictures of our first look at the cabin when we arrived on Tuesday, July 26.  (Click on the pictures to see them a bit larger.)

This was our first look at the cabin. Notice all the hands on hips.	Definitely a "fixer upper."	Looking at the cabin from the front, you can see all the way through the wall on the left side of the building.	The desks were the reason the cabin was known as "the schoolhouse", despite never having served as such.

We got started on the project on Wednesday morning.  The first item of business was to clean up some of the brush the NPS people had cut for us before we had arrived.  Then we took off the roof.  This actually seemed to be an improvement, though our leader, John D., was a bit concerned that the roof was playing a pretty significant role in holding up the building. 

Fortunately, it did stay up.  But a new problem presented itself:  the roof poles were rotten and would need to be replaced.  John D. radioed the NPS, and bright and early Thursday morning, a park service workboat presented us with an assortment of logs to be peeled and cut down to size.

This seemed like a tall order, but fortunately, we had a secret weapon at our disposal.

We had Hans.

Hans was an actual carpenter, and a pro with the draw knife.  But of course, everyone had a part to play. 

John C. cutting a log down to size with the hatchet.	Tee took a turn with the draw knife.	Steve and I worked on the windows. First, I had to scrape out the old glazing compound.	Mary Ann proves she also serves who sits and weights.

Here are some pictures from Thursday afternoon, when the first pole was put into place. 

Told you it looked better without the roof!	The ladder was actually helping to hold the front wall up at this point.	Bill and Joanne settle the first replacement pole into place.	Joanne looks skeptical. Don't worry, Joanne, we can chink those cracks!

Speaking of chinking... Friday morning, as the roof poles were being fashioned and placed, Tee and Maryann got busy gathering moss to use for just that purpose.  The men also tried to figure out how to adjust for the shape of the cabin when it was time to nail the boards onto the roof poles.  "It's not a rectangle," Hans observed of the cabin.  "It's a parallelogram."  Several measurements later, he revised his opinion.  "Actually," he said, "It's a trapezoid."

This was going to present a bit of a challenge.

The other thing they noticed is that the porch needed to be shored up.  And the porch floor needed to be replaced.  For this, John D. decided we could use some of the old roof boards, since rebuilding the porch hadn't been part of the original plan.

Mary Ann gathers moss for chinking.	Close-up view of the moss she is gathering. According to a book I read once, this was the Ojibway mother's version of disposable diapers.	John D., John C. Bill and Steve mull over complications due to the shape of the cabin walls.	The porch floor is definitely in need of a little work.

Threatening weather was a factor, so we worked as quickly as we could on Friday to get the roof poles in place and the roof boards on.  All the tools and supplies had to be carried from the dock to the cabin, so there was no need for me to worry about my fear of heights.  There was plenty of work for someone who didn't like being on a ladder.

Working on the porch.	John D. considers what's holding this all together (besides imagination.)	Hans carries boards for the roof to the cabin on the "high road." There was also an alternate trail at the base of the hill we called the "low road."	Friday afternoon, we had a roof. But the peak was going to have to be trimmed before the roofing could be applied.

Saturday morning, the forecast was for rain.  The men hurried and trimmed the peak off of the roof while the women chinked every crack they could find.  We also put the front window back in, though thanks to careless packaging of the replacement panes, two had arrived broken and were still missing. 

Eventually the rain turned the roof was a slippery mess of wet sawdust and it was too wet to stand outside chinking, so we took the afternoon off to visit with Nancy Johnson Stegman and her niece, Patricia and granddaughter, Samantha (see Journal Entries.) 

But late in the day, John D. announced the roof was dry enough for the men to get back up on top.  It was a frenzy of activity as we divided into three teams:  people cutting tar paper and rolled shingles, people carrying the strips down to the cabin, and people nailing them up on top.  By Saturday evening, we had a roof.

This is how the front of the cabin looked when we quit on Friday afternoon.	This shows the progress made on Saturday morning.	Late Saturday, the roofing went on.	John D. and Hans finishing the roofing.

Sunday morning started out stormy-looking.  Nancy, Pat and Samantha presented us with a plaque to mount inside the cabin, but then they were hustled off by the water taxi pilot due to rough waves on the big lake.  Hans and John C. tackled the problem of the two gaps in the front side of the wall where the remaining window was to go.  They managed to turn two gaps into one by loosening the logs where they joined the front wall post and dropping them all down so that only a one gap remained at the top.  Then Hans fashioned a giant shim to fill the remaining gap. 

Meanwhile, inside the cabin, the inside flooring was removed and a new problem was discovered.  It had already been decided that we would replace all the flooring instead of patching the existing holes, and tongue and groove lumber was on its way for that purpose.  But once the existing flooring was pulled up, we found the floor beams were rotten, too.  So John D. ordered some 2x4's so we would have something to nail the flooring to.

This close up from an earlier picture of the cabin shows the way the logs had settled on the side of the window nearest the front of the cabin.	Hans and John C. dropped the logs down to fill the lower gap. Now all that's left is the top one.	Hans carves a piece to fit the top gap, which is between the top log and the roof.	John D. and Bill investigate what's left after the floor boards were removed. The answer was, not much.

The bright spot was, we got the afternoon off.  And right on cue, the sun came out, making a great day for a swim/bath.

The 2x4's arrived on Monday morning, and there was another frenzy of activity as we put down the floor.  I got to help John C. and John D. hammer... I was SO proud.  Meanwhile Tee finished the chinking and Hans struggled with the side window frame and the porch.  The X's that I thought were just decoration were actually for support, and fitting them into place was a battle on a framework where nothing was parallel or met at right angles.

The most stressful part, but Hans made it look easy.	Cutting the tongue-and-groove lumber to John D.'s specifications. Steve's turn on saw.	It seemed like we should have held a dance on our new floor, but no one had thought to bring a fiddle.	Monday noon. Porch trim and baseboard to add yet. Front, L to R, Bill, Mary Ann, Tee, Joanne, Judy, Steve, Hans. Back, John C., me, John D.

Monday afternoon was our last chance to add finishing touches, and everything was completed in plenty of time.  The remaining two panes of glass had arrived and been installed.  There was baseboard around the floor.  John D. told me to measure the space where the threshold should go.  Not surprisingly, it called for a trapezoid.  Hans helped me saw a board to custom fit, then knocked it into place.  All that was left was to replace our vernacular artifacts, and our cabin was complete.

Judy let the sun shine in the windows.		The desks were returned to perpetuate the schoolhouse myth.	The completed project.

Tuesday morning was foggy and still.  One by one we snuck back down to the cove for one last look at the cabin.  From tourist room to ranger station to cultural memorial, it's transformation was complete.

It was an honor to be a part of it.

This site was last updated 08/18/05