Log hut

“ The first of anything that one sees or experiences remains stronger than all after impressions on the memory. With what interest did the embryo settlers regard the first veritable log-hut that presented itself, surrounded by half an acre of stumps, among which struggled potatoes and big yellow squashes. A dozen hens pecked about; a consumptive-looking cow suspended her chewing, as also did her master his hoeing, to gaze after the waggon, till it disappeared beyond the square frame of forest which shut in the little clearing. ”

“ Our solitary blankets formed poor padding against the inequalities of the rough-hewn boards, and equally ineffectual to keep out the cold draughts which whistled under the ill-fitting door of the hut. A wayside house on the road to the mines is merely a rough log hut of a single room ”

“ His log-hut in the wilderness was a palace masquerading as a hut of logs. Everything was really soft and warm; the furniture was an artificial reproduction of something rough; the floors were spread with skins of wild beasts that cost three or four or five hundred dollars apiece; there was an open fireplace that was designed and built by Marcy, the architect, and a picture of this pretence of roughness was published in the voluminous Sunday issue of some daily paper for all the world to behold.
Such were the surroundings of Henry Herbert Gilderman. ”

“ It is almost impossible to trap these wanderers. Before they establish their quarters, they study the landscape with the eye of a painter. They take a daguerrian view of objects as they are. The log-hut, with its curling smoke—the hay-stack crowned with snow—the settler's cart tipped up, its tongue pointing towards the north star—a goose understands as well as a man. They never blow up nor work destruction. But just try an artificial house of boughs, a brush fence, or an intrenchment near their lines. ”

“ Here and there we passed a log hut; but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered, for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if it deserve the name, was the thick ‘bush;’ and everywhere was stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water. [Pg 189]
“As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other residence. ”

“ Primarily, in its Canadian and original sense, the term means a log-house—a hut made of rough squared logs, built up upon each other. Such log-huts are not common in this country, though they may be seen here and there. The mild climate does not require such a style of building. The labour of cutting and squaring logs for the purpose is great. The native wharè of thatch is quickly and easily raised, serves all requirements, and lasts for years. ”

“ Our path ran close by the door of a log hut in a clearing at this end of the carry, which the Indian, who alone entered it, found to be occupied by a Canadian and his family, and that the man had been blind for a year. This was the first house above Chesuncook, and was built here, no doubt, because it was the route of the lumberers in the winter and spring. ”

“ Sometimes the hunter builds a wooden hut, and the nearest neighbors in the wilderness help cut the timber, build the log hut, fill the crevices with mud, put on the roof and put in windows and doors, and in return the owner pays them with a gallon of brandy, and by a like good service in turn. ”

“ In the gray dawn the huntsmen arise refreshed, have breakfast, and go on their way. If they reach a good hunting-ground, which is visited every winter, they stay as long as they think fit. Here and there they find a log-hut built in previous years and still serviceable for shelter ”

“ We had now reached the last settlement on the frontier, and after a couple of hours’ walk, from our last place of lodging, we reached the last house, on the outer verge of the wilderness. It was a small, newly erected log hut, occupied by a hunter of the name of Roberts, and distant about 20 miles from, and south-west of Potosi. Our approach here was also heralded by dogs. Had we been wolves or panthers, creeping upon the premises at midnight, they could not have performed their duty more noisily. Truly this was a very primitive dwelling, and as recent in its structure as it was primitive. ”

“ They go into the woods and make log huts for winter, but such miserable quarters as these prove to be on closer inspection, with stoves, dirt and chip floor, bedding and food in close proximity to the six or eight inhabitants of each hut, suffice them during warm weather. We found that they elect a chief, who holds the office for life. ”

“ With the aid of friendly neighbours he builds the rude log-hut. The felling of the trees needed to construct it makes an opening for small culture. In a very few years he raises more food than his family needs. ”

“ Trapping is all done in winter and it is a lonely and adventurous calling. Early in September, the men who go the greatest distance inland set out for their trapping grounds. Usually two men go together. They build a small log hut called a "tilt," about eight by ten feet in size. Against each of two sides a bunk is made of saplings and covered with spruce or balsam boughs. ”

“ Near the spring was an empty can, evidently used as a drinking cup. The boys were thirsty and all took a drink. Then they continued on the trail, until they came in sight of a small log hut, almost hidden among the trees and bushes. ”

“ An ordinary hut built of logs, perhaps twenty feet square, with a door made of puncheon planks, by which I mean planks that have been hewn out of the log with an axe rather than cut by a saw, and two windows, in one of which four panes of glass were broken, but both protected by shutters which swung from the outside. The building consisted of one room on the floor where the occupants were supposed to eat, sleep and live, while above was a loft formed by the roof, and approached through a scuttle situated directly opposite the door, at the rear of the hovel. ”

“ The shanty is a sort of primitive hut in Canadian architecture, and is nothing more than a shed built of logs, the chinks between the round edges of the timbers being filled with mud, moss, and bits of wood; the roof is frequently composed of logs split and hollowed with the axe, and placed side by side, so that the edges rest on each other; the concave and convex surfaces being alternately uppermost, every other log forms a channel to carry off the rain and melting snow. ”

“ In most preserves small log huts of the most primitive kind are built expressly for this purpose high up on the mountains close to timber-line, and if possible close to some prominent point of rocks or shoulder of the mountain whence the slopes below on both sides can be, as the Germans say, ‘overheard.’ What glorious solos, duets, and trios can the lucky stalker not hear on such occasions, when nought but those weird sounds breaks the great solemn silence of night on the elevated Alpine timber-line regions! ”

“ On the farm, in the vicinity of the fort, are thirty or forty log huts, which are occupied by the Canadians, and others attached {172} to the establishment. These huts are placed in rows, with broad lanes or streets between them, and the whole looks like a very neat and beautiful village. The most fastidious cleanliness appears to be observed; the women may be seen sweeping the streets and scrubbing the door-sills as regularly as in our own proverbially cleanly city. ”

“ An hour or two later I arose, swallowed a handful of dried herbs by way of breakfast, and forced open the cabin door. It was an altered world that greeted me; the clouds had rolled away, and the sky, barely tinged with the last fading pink and buff of dawn, was of a pale, unruffled blue. But a white sheet covered the ground, and mantled the roofs of the log huts, and wove fantastic patterns over the limbs of leafless bushes and trees. All things seemed new-made and beautiful, yet all were wintry and forlorn—and what a majestic sight were the encircling peaks! ”

“ There were three huts on the siding of a spur of the ridge that came down to the corner of Log Paddock. One, a one-roomed bark hut, with the chimney and door in an end, stood down close to the road, within stone-throw of the claim. The other two were up the hill a bit, to right and left, the one on the left a two-roomed bark hut, the other had four rooms, a skillion, and a shed, and whitewashed slab walls, and was called a house—"Mrs. Foster's House," or "Mrs. Foster's Place," or, for short, "the Fosters'." Mrs. ”

“ With a whoop they set out across the slope for the ruined hut, which stood back in a small clearing cut out of the forest. Blackened stumps stood about it but it was long since the ground had been cultivated. A few mouldering corn stalks, however, remained to show that the place had once been inhabited.
As for the hut itself, it was a primitive shelter of rough logs, the roof of which had been formed [260] out of "slabs" split from the logs direct. A stone chimney was crumbling away at one end, but it was many a year since any cheerful wreaths of smoke had wound upward from it. ”

“ In summer all they require is to be shaded from the sun, and for this a pile of bushes or a tree will suffice. The winter huts are a little more pretentious. These are sometimes erected on the level ground, but more frequently over an excavation three or four feet deep, and varying from ten to thirty feet in diameter. Round the brink of this hole willow poles are sunk upright in the ground and the tops drawn together, forming a conical structure, or the upper ends are bent over 372 and driven into the earth on the opposite side of the pit, thus giving the hut a semi-globular shape. ”

“ Perched on the perilous brink of that curving wall of rocks, with its low, irregular, patched and weather-beaten roof, and its rough-boarded and storm-beaten walls half hidden in a tangle of vines and bushes, the little hut looks, from a distance, as though it might once have been the strange habitation of some gigantic winged creature of prehistoric ages. ”

“ The huts are long and low, with an arched roof, and vary in length from ten to twenty feet, with an average height of five feet, and a width of six. They consist of a neat framework of strips of bamboo, thatched with long coarse grass. Each hut is usually situated in a small well-fenced enclosure, and opposite to it on the beach is the cooking place, consisting of a small shed, under which the fire is made. ”

“ The huts here are like those already described, only they are dry because of the porous character of the ground. Three or four families live in one each having a private polog of deer-skins, of which there are several thicknesses on the floor. We were shown into one—the snuggest storm nest imaginable, and perfectly clean. The common hut is far otherwise; dogs mingle with the food, hair is everywhere, and strangely persistent smells that defy even the Arctic frosts. The children seemed in fair ratio with the adults. ”

“ The materials for their huts grow around them in the greatest abundance, a few forked upright poles form the walls, and bear others forming the roof; thin sticks tied horizontally or perpendicularly to the uprights, both inside and out, forming a double wall, complete the framework of the hut, which is then plastered with clay or earth, or covered with grass or “loandos,” or mats made of the dried stem of the papyrus. ”

“ Being set on building a substantial house, or rather fortress, as I said, we saw that with our rude tools it would take us a very long time, and so we first took in hand to make a small hut which would shelter us while the other was a-building. This we determined to place at the edge of the wood above the lake, and we found much material in the trees which had been uprooted in the storm, and in young straight saplings which we could either pull up, the soil being thin, or cut down with our stone axes. ”

“ Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hut 103 is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief. ”

“ Such huts as these, however, are but seldom seen, the ordinary winter dwellings being made of bushes, as seen in an illustration on the next page. Near the entrance, but not within it, the fire is kindled, and at night the natives crowd into the hut, filling it so completely that a view of the interior displays nothing but a confused mass of human limbs. The reader will perceive that the luxury of a door has not been contemplated by the native architects—an omission which is perhaps rather fortunate, considering the crowded state of the interior. ”

“ Their huts are one-roomed affairs with the floor of beaten clay, upon which, at night, are laid woven grass mats that serve as beds. The walls are of charo—a kind of poor relative of the bamboo—lashed to a slender framework of the same material by split strips of the mora, the typical hut of the tropical frontier. Stout posts sunk at the corners give the strength to support the roof. ”