For those of you who haven’t really followed my postings over the years, after Dean and I brought the property down near Hurricane (aka Hurricane cabin near Chulitna Alaska) we applied for the State of Alaska Land Lottery and won, along with 50 or so other folks. Anyway, the land lottery is the state’s replacement to Home Steading and a pretty good deal, at least I think so.
Our original agreement after getting both locations was that I would build the first cabin in Hurricane and Dean would build one on the Steese property. As time went on Dean got side tracked with the regular issues of life and helped me build the Hurricane cabin and not the Steese one.
So last month (Sept 2014) he informs me that his wonderful and charming daughter got all her material for a 16×20 cabin. One slight little problem….. She needs dad (Dean) to build it because building is not one of her major skill sets.
Oh joy, here it is the middle of September, the temps are dropping and snow is ready to fall any time now. Materials at the site, nope, folks lined up to help, nope, so after talking to Dean I knew he was in affix and needed some help.
The first weekend I took the RV up and stayed at the gravel pit off the Hwy and yup it snowed and rained and the wind was a blowing, it was such a wonderful time :<) And it gets better, the cabin has to be finished by the end of Oct., and most of the material is still in town. So I spend most of my time waiting and then hauling a little material in Sunday, then head back to town and go to work. The following weekend I sort of talked Jake in to helping and I know this is going to cost me, what, not sure, when, don’t know, but it is a coming. Jake and I did get a good run at hauling some loads in and with the snow on the ground it was just dandy going up the first steep hill. So much fun to loose traction and have to have Jake use his ATV hooked up to mine so we could travel in tandem and make it up the hill with a load of lumber behind my ATV. But we got 4 loads in, unfortunately there was still a bunch left to go. Last Saturday I made a solo trip up to see where they were (And Alaska Hwy’s are so much fun to drive in a snow storm with snowy, icy, wet roads) progress wise and discovered that all the material for the cabin’s platform were in, so Dean and I layout the BCI’s (floor joist) and got that first milestone done. I understand that Dean also got the first wall laid out and is ready to be framed and then lifted in place. So a good weekend all in all. So you can appreciate the wonderful working conditions, the first picture is where I parked my truck and rode the ATV the 6.5 miles from into the site, the picture before the last is the one where you can actually see something and is what it should look like. Nothing better than riding in white out conditions in the middle of nowhere. [flagallery gid=154 name="Gallery" skin=StylishGrey] Anyway, this coming weekend should be another mile stone, if all goes as were hoping (Dean anyway) the walls will get framed and in place and we might even get a start on framing the roof. I know some folks that have great expectations, like having the walls and roof up and sheeted, hum, we’ll see. If everyone who has said they’ll show up shows up, it’s possible, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Share on Facebook