W/NW Huts, cabins, shacks, bothies, baches, etc...

Shearing shed, Mia Mia Victoria Australia Xpan

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[/url]Shearing's done, Mia Mia by john m, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
I've always liked cabins, and I appreciated them whenever I saw them. But having grown up in rural Illinois I can't say that I ever paid them very much thought. I was fixated on any number of other things. Once I left the midwest, the time I did spend sleeping in the outdoors was typically in a tent while backpacking or car camping. My wife on the other hand had dreamed of owning a cabin in the woods since she was a little girl as I learned early on in our relationship. She has a number of relatives located in New England who own "camps" to that they retreat to. In 2012 we decided to make her dream a reality and purchased a forest service cabin located in the Mt. Hood National Forest here in northwestern Oregon. When a forest service cabin changes hands, the cabin itself is sold, but the land it resides upon is leased from the forest service. The cabin was a turnkey purchase — the previous owners included practically everything with the sale (most all of the furniture, the appliances, the cookware, etc., etc.).

This cabin was built by Henry Steiner and his sons John and Frank back in the 1930's. Local historians note that it's likely the bulk of the work was done by John and his brother. Steiner and his sons built around 100 such cabins (and one church) in the area as part of a larger effort by the forest service at the time to raise awareness of these resources, encouraging more people to spend time there. Henry Steiner was also involved with building Timberline lodge up on Mt. Hood which is located about 15 miles away.

While the photos themselves aren't much to speak of, the cabin itself is a nice example of a building style known as Cascadian Rustic and that's mainly why I share them here. The outside of the cabin remains largely intact. However it's likely the front porch has been replaced a few times simply due to wood rot resulting from the cabin's placement. These photos were taken not long after we bought the place. In the exterior photo you can see that most of the posts are poles instead of the hand hewn logs that would have originally been used and some other older repair work is evident. We ourselves are now in the process of rebuilding the porch, this time using hand-hewn logs in place of the rotted posts. The inside of the cabin has quite a few modifications carried out by previous owners including the addition of wood paneling. I had planned to remove the paneling in an attempt at restoration but learned that the logs underneath had been shaved to some degree in order to install the paneling.

In reality, there's already more than enough to take care of with this structure as it is. While owning this cabin is not exactly as romantic as we had originally envisioned it would be, the overall experience has been incredibly educational. The goal now is to try to preserve it as best we can so that it can be passed along to other caretakers down the line. The Mt. Hood Cultural Center & Museum, located in Government Camp up on Mt. Hood puts together an annual tour of these cabins. Ironically, while we have participated in this program, we have yet to attend the tour ourselves.


Steiner Outside by Bill Guthrie, on Flickr


Steiner Inside Stonework by Bill Guthrie, on Flickr


Steiner Inside Wide by Bill Guthrie, on Flickr


Steiner Inside Stairs by Bill Guthrie, on Flickr
 
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