The Cabin
By Cliff Fuglestad
I know I'm only a cabin, but I have my feelings too. After all, I've been part of this family for going on thirty years. Time enough in which to store up warm memories that keep crowding in during the long winters months that lie ahead and when I am all alone. This has always been the worst time of the year for me. It begins in the late fall with Dad spending more time than usual looking out on the Bay with that distracted air that tells you that he is going to make a decision pretty soon. And this being that time of year it means he will be saying it's time to close up the cabin before we get another southeast blow.
It's nearly always a difficult decision for him to make. If the weather is nice, Dad and Mom are tempted on one hand to stay another week, but at the same time they would like to take advantage of the weather to make a comfortable crossing to Homer. I've heard enough of their stories about some of their roughest crossings to understand their dilemma. It's the difference between doing it in 25 minutes or battling waves for nearly an hour, listening to the engine change its pitch as they climb each wave and then descend into the next trough.
Well, they're leaving tomorrow and the preparations have begun, getting me ready for yet another winter with whomever of the family is here to help them. It's mostly routine work now but there is also a sense of urgency to be on their way. And then the boat is loaded and underway. Dad is sitting outside the cabin and his eyes never leave me until the boat disappears behind Gaspe Rock. I know because my eyes have never left the boat. At his age I suspect he wonders if he will be able to make it back next spring.
And now I have five long months ahead of me before I can look forward to that day. How slowly the weeks pass! The nights grow longer, the temperature drops, and when they come in from the southeast, the winds grow stronger until at times they scream with manic fury, at times uprooting spruce trees that are over 100 years old. The rain will come in lashing torrents and the waves will grow higher as they threaten the sleeping cabin on the beach below. The rain will turn to snow and the snow to ice when the next low pressure system moves in, gripping the island in a sheet of ice.
Its then that I live on the warm memories of years past. If I try, I can hear the sound of children's laughter that began at the time of my coming into the world and lasted until the two girls followed their four brothers into adulthood. What wonderful times they had as they roamed the Island as well as the surrounding waters, always returning to the warmth and cozy protection within my walls which they all played a part in erecting. Nearly all of the stories are told with laughter and Dad can only listen since he had to spend the summers working in Anchorage. It was Mom who stayed with the family here in the Cove and could share in the story telling.
It was amazing the way she would let the kids do things on their own, even to set out in the rowing pram, often to visit the old timers, Rusty, Elmer and Rosie on the inside of the Cove or to check the mail, or to spend time in the library. I don't know how she kept from worrying. I know that I did quite often, and spent many an anxious hour waiting for them to appear around the lighthouse point and head for our beach.
And then there were the trips up and down the Bay to picnic on different beaches, dig clams or just explore. Rusty's Lagoon on Glacier Spit was a favorite spot because of its swimming hole. For a while there was some fantastic clam digging in a spot that Karen had spotted where you could push your hands down into the loose bottom and come up with 4 or 5 little neck clams every time. That's all gone now due to a shift in the creek draining the lagoon.
But it is on our end of the island where they spent nearly all of their time because there was always much to do. Chores of course -- but also projects that would improve things and add to everyone's comfort. And during the rainy days, Mom always had craft materials that they could work on or had brought along games that could help pass the hours. The outdoor games were played with great enthusiasm and a lot of noise. One game they made up involved climbing the steep alder-covered slopes using only the alders to put your feet on. If you slipped and your foot touched the ground, you had to return to the bottom of the slope and start all over again.
We have a beautiful gravel beach where they could play other games when the tide is out and where they could have their camp fires at night. Right around a sharp rock point is a small sheltered cove where a dense growth of alder and spruce at the upper end formed a leafy canopy some protection against the elements. It was here that Glen, with his sharp eyes, spotted the large stone lamp leaning against the rock wall where a prehistoric Eskimo had placed it many centuries ago, never to return. I've heard Dad speculate that because of its size it must have been a permanent fixture of the small cove.
Here the men of the small, prehistoric Eskimo village inside Halibut Cove must have gathered over the centuries to act out their hunting stories, perhaps to talk about the strange, new people who were beginning to appear on the upper reaches of Cook Inlet, or more probably to engage in their shamanistic rites that would bring them good luck on their next hunt for the larger and more dangerous mammals that would provide additional subsistence for the village.
Late in the fall, in a gathering dusk, with tendrils of fog lying low on the water, I find it requires very little imagination to picture such a gathering, to almost hear the guttural voices of a Stone Age people and to almost see the flickering light reflected on the rock wall below me -- and to wonder. Who were the last of their kind to place the stone lamp against the tock wall and then leave, never to return as the gulls called out a lonely requiem? How many centuries have passed since then as the storm tides reached further into the cove as the land subsided in a series of giant earthquakes, alternately covering and then uncovering the stone lamp with the shifting gravel? And how many people since then, particularly in recent years, have walked into the cove at low tide to pick the plentiful mussels and to look for driftwood while failing to see this Stone Age relic?
I know I'm only a cabin, but I have my feelings too. After all, I've been part of this family for going on thirty years. Time enough in which to store up warm memories that keep crowding in during the long winters months that lie ahead and when I am all alone. This has always been the worst time of the year for me. It begins in the late fall with Dad spending more time than usual looking out on the Bay with that distracted air that tells you that he is going to make a decision pretty soon. And this being that time of year it means he will be saying it's time to close up the cabin before we get another southeast blow.
It's nearly always a difficult decision for him to make. If the weather is nice, Dad and Mom are tempted on one hand to stay another week, but at the same time they would like to take advantage of the weather to make a comfortable crossing to Homer. I've heard enough of their stories about some of their roughest crossings to understand their dilemma. It's the difference between doing it in 25 minutes or battling waves for nearly an hour, listening to the engine change its pitch as they climb each wave and then descend into the next trough.
Well, they're leaving tomorrow and the preparations have begun, getting me ready for yet another winter with whomever of the family is here to help them. It's mostly routine work now but there is also a sense of urgency to be on their way. And then the boat is loaded and underway. Dad is sitting outside the cabin and his eyes never leave me until the boat disappears behind Gaspe Rock. I know because my eyes have never left the boat. At his age I suspect he wonders if he will be able to make it back next spring.
And now I have five long months ahead of me before I can look forward to that day. How slowly the weeks pass! The nights grow longer, the temperature drops, and when they come in from the southeast, the winds grow stronger until at times they scream with manic fury, at times uprooting spruce trees that are over 100 years old. The rain will come in lashing torrents and the waves will grow higher as they threaten the sleeping cabin on the beach below. The rain will turn to snow and the snow to ice when the next low pressure system moves in, gripping the island in a sheet of ice.
Its then that I live on the warm memories of years past. If I try, I can hear the sound of children's laughter that began at the time of my coming into the world and lasted until the two girls followed their four brothers into adulthood. What wonderful times they had as they roamed the Island as well as the surrounding waters, always returning to the warmth and cozy protection within my walls which they all played a part in erecting. Nearly all of the stories are told with laughter and Dad can only listen since he had to spend the summers working in Anchorage. It was Mom who stayed with the family here in the Cove and could share in the story telling.
It was amazing the way she would let the kids do things on their own, even to set out in the rowing pram, often to visit the old timers, Rusty, Elmer and Rosie on the inside of the Cove or to check the mail, or to spend time in the library. I don't know how she kept from worrying. I know that I did quite often, and spent many an anxious hour waiting for them to appear around the lighthouse point and head for our beach.
And then there were the trips up and down the Bay to picnic on different beaches, dig clams or just explore. Rusty's Lagoon on Glacier Spit was a favorite spot because of its swimming hole. For a while there was some fantastic clam digging in a spot that Karen had spotted where you could push your hands down into the loose bottom and come up with 4 or 5 little neck clams every time. That's all gone now due to a shift in the creek draining the lagoon.
But it is on our end of the island where they spent nearly all of their time because there was always much to do. Chores of course -- but also projects that would improve things and add to everyone's comfort. And during the rainy days, Mom always had craft materials that they could work on or had brought along games that could help pass the hours. The outdoor games were played with great enthusiasm and a lot of noise. One game they made up involved climbing the steep alder-covered slopes using only the alders to put your feet on. If you slipped and your foot touched the ground, you had to return to the bottom of the slope and start all over again.
We have a beautiful gravel beach where they could play other games when the tide is out and where they could have their camp fires at night. Right around a sharp rock point is a small sheltered cove where a dense growth of alder and spruce at the upper end formed a leafy canopy some protection against the elements. It was here that Glen, with his sharp eyes, spotted the large stone lamp leaning against the rock wall where a prehistoric Eskimo had placed it many centuries ago, never to return. I've heard Dad speculate that because of its size it must have been a permanent fixture of the small cove.
Here the men of the small, prehistoric Eskimo village inside Halibut Cove must have gathered over the centuries to act out their hunting stories, perhaps to talk about the strange, new people who were beginning to appear on the upper reaches of Cook Inlet, or more probably to engage in their shamanistic rites that would bring them good luck on their next hunt for the larger and more dangerous mammals that would provide additional subsistence for the village.
Late in the fall, in a gathering dusk, with tendrils of fog lying low on the water, I find it requires very little imagination to picture such a gathering, to almost hear the guttural voices of a Stone Age people and to almost see the flickering light reflected on the rock wall below me -- and to wonder. Who were the last of their kind to place the stone lamp against the tock wall and then leave, never to return as the gulls called out a lonely requiem? How many centuries have passed since then as the storm tides reached further into the cove as the land subsided in a series of giant earthquakes, alternately covering and then uncovering the stone lamp with the shifting gravel? And how many people since then, particularly in recent years, have walked into the cove at low tide to pick the plentiful mussels and to look for driftwood while failing to see this Stone Age relic?