pages 15-16
Now came the question of lumber. In the early history of
Minnesota it was the custom for logging crews to cut the trees
in winter and skid them to the nearest navigable waterway or
stream and there pile up the logs on the ice (mythology says
Paul Bunyan and his blue ox "Babe" did most of the work). In
the spring, when the ice melted, the logs floated into the
Mississippi River and down to Minneapolis. About one mile
north of St. Anthony's Falls (where the huge sawmills were
once located), a barrier to catch and hold the logs was built.
Every year, however, a few logs would sink to the bottom and
stay there. Meanwhile, the supply of logs had dried up, and the
large mills closed and were gone when our need for cheap
lumber arose. As it so happened, an enterprising father and son
team had devised a means of hooking onto these sunken
treasures and hauling them ashore to a very small saw, where
they put out one board at a time with their own labor. It was
from these two that we ordered all of our dimension lumber
which they delivered about the time I had our last barrel home.
It was now January, and the ice was thick on the lake.
Roy became the chief architect and master carpenter,
furnishing the know-how and the tools and skilled labor.
First, we tightened all the plugs in the barrels, then
rolled them out onto the ice and lined them up in four rows, all
eighty-eight of them. Next, we carried out the long stringers
and fitted them over the barrels lengthwise so each twenty-two
were held in a slot. Then, crosswise, we nailed planking, and
when that was completed, we had a platform. Onto this
platform we now built our house, leaving a walkway on each
side and rear, plus an open porch in front. We used regular two
by four construction for side walls, but for the roof, Roy had
cleverly cut the top of two by twelves in a bow shape. When
roofed, the rain would run off.