The Quintessential Northwoods Cabin

Quintessential-

1. of the pure and essential essence of something:

2. of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of something:

Sitting in the soft yellow light from gas lamps above and over my shoulder, scratching notes in a old spiral bound notebook-those definitions were all I could think of and the first words penned on the blank sheet of paper. This was the quintessential northwoods cabin. It had no modern conveniences, but it had everything.. Rough weathered wood and tar paper walls, small wood stove, assorted chairs and old deer hunting backtags pinned up as reminders of seasons past. A perfectly honed hatchet and ax leaned on a small stack of oak kindling, ready, willing and anxiously waiting to add warmth to this small space when cold November winds return. Not needed on this 80+ summer day, I imagined the scent of wood smoke here greeting cold hunters returning from a long day on the stand. It must feel like heaven.

A long faded blaze orange jacket hung on a peg next a shelf lined with .20 gauge shells, a tattered box of 6.5 X 35mm cartridges and half empty bottle of scent eliminator. This was a cabin for fall-for the chill of the first snow on the ground, to be filled with opening day optimism or just a quiet place to escape and hike in the woods. For now, I'm scribbling notes in the dog days of summer and love the serenity of everything that is here and not here.

These four walls belong the time when leaves have long since turned. Wading through ferns down the steep ridge to the lake below has a much different feel now than when the old patched duck boat is turned upright and slipped into water lilies with a couple cork decoys in the bow. Even more fitting is after solid ice forms and a thin coating of snow blankets everything white. Ever present deer tracks are crossed occasionally  with a wolf print, worthy of exploring further by snowshoe clad cabin visitors.

This is the “perfect embodiment of” the hunting cabin. Although I'm a stranger here and trespassing at the wrong time of year, it feels like home. The “Shack” belongs to a good friend, who'd started laying logs and painstakingly chinking between them many years ago just outside of Rhinelander. Mitch was kind enough to let me stay here a few days while in the area and maybe just happy to have another person rest under it's roof outside of a few short days each fall. No water or electricity and nothing fancy with but an outhouse for convenience....perfect. Mitch and I are of like minds and he knew this would fit me well during my stay.

Hunting cabins are not cottages, or blocked up old travel trailers or pole sheds. To me they need to be like this one. Logs, wood stove, minimalist in nature and having a singular purpose. As cliché as it sounds, the only ambition of a cabin like this is to be a humble escape from modern life. Mitch lamented not being able to spend more time there and as I settled into a no smartphone, no internet, no electricity life during my brief stay I knew why. I wrote more, photographed, spent time reading the tattered journal on the table of years past-accounts of weather and people and success or not of years gone by. I added a few pages of my own in the leather bound book, happy to share my warm weather experiences of what now will always be a special place with some perfect moments.

I stayed up later and woke earlier, the sense of time hardly disturbed by the clicking of an old wind up clock on a shelf. Feeling alive and awake even at a just dawning day, was easy-a quick jump in the cold lake below assured me of that. It's only the initial shock of hitting the water that I was anxious about each morning. Beyond that, I'd sometimes linger waist deep, surrounded by a veil of fog surrounding me in air cooler than the lake. Dripping wet, it was a long climb back up to the confines of the shack, but pressed hot coffee would be steaming on a waiting table and worth every minute in this morning routine.

I felt more alive here-maybe it's the novelty of simple life, or perhaps only because moments and places like this cabin are few and far between that make them all the more appreciated. I think both. I didn't realize it before stepping foot through door of this place, but yes, this tiny ten by twelve foot cabin embodied exactly what we sometimes miss and other times need most in our life if even for the briefest visit.