A common question asked by our guests is "How did the cabins get here? There isn't a road within 185 miles!" In the past, I could pass on the story that whole cabins were flown in a DC-3 during the winter time. The massive DC-3 was equipped with ski's and was able to land on the frozen lakes right at the building location. In the frigid cold, pilots unloaded the entire cabin onto the ice and left the hauling to several builders. The cabin was then packed board by board off the ice to the construction site before the ice melted. At the time, that was the most efficient way to transport materials.
Present day, as many of you know Big Hook suffered the loss of Burnt Lake to forest fires this summer. Presented with this problem, I asked myself "How do we get a cabin up here?" DC-3's are no longer cost effective along with being few and far between. Plus, the option of waiting till winter to build a cabin was out of the question. Our final decision was to build a cabin this fall. Plenty of planning promptly ensued. Costs, logistics and labor help were difficult to estimate being so remote. A magical number calculated was 17,000. This number was the weight, in pounds, of the cabin. Once again, I asked myself, "How do we get a cabin up here?"
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| 12,500 lbs of materials |
After countless phone calls, we developed our plan to haul the cabin in. The cabins journey started via semi from Dryden, Ontario to the Wasaya hanger in Red Lake. On September 5th Wasaya Airways then loaded up their Hawker, a large cargo plane with a max 12,500 pounds payload, for the first run and the remaining 4,500 on the second run. In Sandy Lake 7 helpers plus dad and myself unloaded the Hawker board by board onto a freighter truck that looked like it had survived numerous rough winters in Sandy. Without the aid of forklift or heavy machinery, just strong hands and backs, we carefully piled the first 12,500 lbs of materials onto the truck. After a short drive to the float base, we then lumped everything out of the truck onto the front lawn of Sandy Lake Seaplane. No big deal, we just moved 25,000 lbs...our aching backs thought otherwise. The second run of 4,500 pds was effortless compared to the first. Everyone let out a small cheer as we were 145 miles closer to delivering our cabin to Burnt. However, the most difficult leg of the cabins journey was upon us.
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Corey marching up the hill
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Without a doubt, Sept 7th was the most physical day of work I have ever experienced. Under clear skies and cool temperatures we utilized Showalter's Twin Beech for the final push to deliver the cabin. Unfortunately, several workers failed to show up for duty. "Off to a rocky start," I thought. Myself and two helpers situated ourselves in Sandy Lake for the loading half while Dad and two helpers unloaded at Burnt Lake. Countless 2x4 after 2x4 we loaded up the Beech. The material that slowed the pace of the day was the steel roofing. Delicately loading the 13 ft 11 inch roofing into the Beech was equivalent to parking a full size truck into a compact car spot, it's doable but takes time. Just when everyone thought their arms and backs couldn't haul any more, we were finished. After seven loads with the Beech and several with our 185 Cessna airplane the cabin was successfully moved to Burnt Lake. Dad and his helpers even managed to haul every board up the Burnt Lake hill without the aid of steps, just a makeshift step way. Not too bad for a 63 year old with one replaced knee! In one day we managed load and unload 17,000 pounds, march it all up a steep grade and get home before the sunset. I'll admit as proud as we were of our accomplishment, no one was able to stay awake past 8 p.m. that evening.
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| The materials up top the hill |
The final weight of the cabin...16,950 pounds. Not bad estimating in my opinion. Now you know the story on the grueling task of delivering an outpost cabin 200 miles into the bush. The next task at hand is to begin construction.
To be continued......
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