A Tale of Two Cabins

I've been lucky enough to vacation recently in two very different cabins on federal land, for free -- "our tax dollars at work!" -- unless you count the long hours of planning, shopping, traveling and laboring as a volunteer.  First and foremost is the rustic, old family cabin up on tiny Gale Island -- in Lake Superior's cluster of islands now called Isle Royale National Park (http://www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm).

A kerosene lamp's mantle glows at the Gale Island cabin window, looking out on Lake Superior.

The cabin was built on an island purchased in the '30s by the Gale family, my husband's cousins, long before there was an Isle Royale park. When a movement grew to make a national park of the 50-mile stretch of islands -- large and small -- many island-owning families welcomed it.  Shabby commercial structures had begun lining beaches and rocky shores; the park was a chance to clean that up and bring in visitors respectful of moose, fox, otters, wolves, eagles, loons and many other species of animal and plant.

An old photo shows the clog of shanties on Isle Royale, before it gained National Park status.

Gales, meanwhile, had a "life lease" with the park that allowed the family to take turns summering in the cabin many times over the decades. When the last lessee -- Alex's uncle Phil Gale -- died a few years ago, the cabin had an uncertain future.  We all continued to visit and work on preserving it.  We'd also revel in the peace and quiet, in the occasional storm (Gale Island being aptly named), in picking wild blueberries and thimbleberries, in hiking and canoeing and in watching for spectacular colors at sunrise and sunset across one of Lake Superior's key shipping channels. Could all that be coming to an end, we wondered?!

Sunrise on Lake Superior, as viewed from just outside the Gale Island cabin, Sept. 2010.

But first, here's how we'd get to the cabin.  Every summer from the early '90s through 2010, we'd pack our big cooler and many cloth grocery bags with tomatoes and herbs from our small city garden and with many other farmers' market vegetables and fruits, plus cheeses, pastas, sauces and wine -- enough food for two weeks. Then we'd drive north 12 hours from St. Louis to Houghton, MI; we'd take a ferry or seaplane the next day; and, finally, we'd connect with a motorboat to get to our little piece of conifer-covered rock.

Our ferry -- the Ranger III -- takes six hours to cross Superior from Houghton, MI, and usually is packed full of folks planning to hike, camp, kayak or stay in the park lodge for a rustic vacation.

A seaplane is much quicker from Houghton -- 45 minutes -- but much more expensive than the ferry and more weather-dependent.

A motorboat is the last conveyance, taking 10 minutes or so to get to Gale Island.

We and others would haul up propane for cooking on Gale Island's kitchen stove or outdoor grill. We'd pump lake water at the kitchen sink and filter it for drinking and cooking or heat it in kettles over the main room's fireplace for washing dishes, and ourselves (in a tiny bathhouse connected to the tool shed).

The Gale cabin's massive fireplace, circa 1930s.

And we'd read and read and read -- by firelight, enhanced with the soft glow of oil lamps...

Reading at the Gale cabin picture window.

...or on a cool, sunny screened-in front porch.

A reading and eating spot on the front porch.

Now, things are different. For awhile, we thought we'd lost access to Gale Island, as National Park Service officials struggled to define its use for life-lessees and their families. At one point, the NPS issued one- and two-year volunteer agreements to original family members (not necessarily to us cousins). "It is still unclear what the long term future holds for original families who have been in cabins for many generations," says a posting by the group, "Isle Royale Families and Friends Association" (http://www.isleroyalefamilies.org/index.htm). Cousins Chris, Tom, Steve and Don Gale -- the four sons of Phil -- have already been back to volunteer. Alex and I want to return, perhaps in 2013, and we're thinking of service projects for the cabin or park, or both?

Our beloved Gale Island cabin, circa 1930.

But we've wanted something to fill in until then.

We found it in snowy Montana! If you've followed this blog, you'll know that Alex has old friends in the town of Hamilton -- where he and his parents spent summers in the '50s. We vacationed here last June. We even looked at houses in town on that visit. Then, we surprised ourselves in September by buying a little bungalow when the price dropped dramatically. But would we like it in the winter?  Oh, yes we would! The cross-country skiing is superb, especially at the Continental Divide south of Hamilton, where the Bitterroot, Beaverhead Deerlodge and Salmon Challis national forests converge.

A trail called Broadway has new tracks set weekly by volunteers with the Bitterroot Cross-Country Ski Club (http://www.bitterrootxcskiclub.net/); it's part of a 17-mile system of trails at Chief Joseph Pass, in the confluence of three national forests south of Hamilton.

And best of all, our new membership in the cross-country ski club earned us a night in a 12-year-old cabin -- also a warming hut for daytime skiers -- on the Divide. We stayed there last week and have been back several times for daytime skiing!

Gordon Reese Cabin, south of Hamilton, MT. (photo by Bitterroot Cross Country Ski Club)

Unlike the remote Gale cabin, you get to Gordon Reese by driving 40 miles south, up to 7,200 feet, with a duffle full of sleeping gear and backpacks full of water and food for dinner and breakfast the next morning. Oh, and there's the toboggan that we borrowed from a good friend.

With a bungee cord attached to his belt as well as to a toboggan's rope, Alex skis-in our supplies for the night.

Once ensconced in the cabin, we relax on one of a series of cabin benches before heading out to ski again.

View of the lounge and game room, from a cabin table.

And, as overnight hosts, we keep the fire going and meet and greet fellow skiers, from a 4-year-old named Seamus to a former Sun Valley ski instructor, 85-year-old Pat Bartholomew.

Skier Pat Bartholomew.

By about 5 p.m., other skiers disappear. The light fades. No electricity? No problem. There's a bit of solar energy that we use, along with a propane stove, to make dinner.  But we're comfortable mostly with the glow of a good fire.

Notice wet clothes hanging behind the stove to dry.

The night is magical, with the moon casting shadows on pristine stretches of snow. And the sunrise is even better. Ours is not quite as colorful as sunrises on Gale Island. And the low temperature is a frigid 8 degrees; we're usually at Gale over Labor Day, in the warmth of early September. But it's equally warm inside Gordon Reese, where the stove cranks out an amazing amount of heat, and we dine happily on pancakes topped with Montana huckleberry jam.

Sunrise at Gordon Reese Cabin, Feb. 2012 (in the distance, the Pioneer Mountains).

Then, we wash dishes, pack and clean for the next hosts, who are set to arrive shortly after noon. Four  women day skiers shuffle in before then. We welcome them to the cabin and remember, later, that a proposal for the Gale Cabin is to open it up to Isle Royale visitors at certain times of day. Indeed, there's a lot of island history in that cabin. We'd be hosts all over again! Some 1,400 miles away and not many cabin differences, after all.