SE Alaska question (Craig, Thorne Bay, Hydaburg: rentals, home, to buy)

[OneDawg]

Does anyone know or is familiar with Boardwalk Lodge in Thorne Bay?

[Parnassia]

I've heard of it. Too upscale for the likes of me. It didn't exist when I last went to Thorne Bay...well, that's not saying much. A lot of Thorne Bay didn't exist then either!

Sorry I can't tell you more.

[OneDawg]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

I've heard of it. Too upscale for the likes of me. It didn't exist when I last went to Thorne Bay...well, that's not saying much. A lot of Thorne Bay didn't exist then either!

Sorry I can't tell you more.

HUH??? I saw it from the air in 1986

[riceme]

Originally Posted by OneDawg

HUH??? I saw it from the air in 1986

Maybe she was last there in 1978?

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by riceme

Maybe she was last there in 1978?

It was the late 70s. A lot of the big clearcuts in that area of the Tongass were pretty raw! Worked with a PhD candidate doing post-clearcut ecological research for the USFS in the Maybeso Experimental Forest and lived in a small dry log raft cabin (Pana-boat, Wannagin...don't remember) that had been dragged above the tideline near the new ferry dock in Hollis. There was nothing going on in Hollis but an occasional visit from AMHS and the Hydaburg road contractor's basecamp. We'd buy an occasional shower/laundry there. Sometimes drive to Craig to recharge our radio's car battery. When the tiny toy ferry came in we'd stroll down the dock to buy eggs and orange juice. Can't believe what Hollis looks like now!

[riceme]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

It was the late 70s. A lot of the big clearcuts in that area of the Tongass were pretty raw! Worked with a PhD candidate doing post-clearcut ecological research for the USFS in the Maybeso Experimental Forest and lived in a small dry log raft cabin (Pana-boat, Wannagin...don't remember) that had been dragged above the tideline near the new ferry dock in Hollis. There was nothing going on in Hollis but an occasional visit from AMHS and the Hydaburg road contractor's basecamp. We'd buy an occasional shower/laundry there. Sometimes drive to Craig to recharge our radio's car battery. When the tiny toy ferry came in we'd stroll down the dock to buy eggs and orange juice. Can't believe what Hollis looks like now!

That sounds like an awesome adventure - thank you for sharing. What was it like living the dry raft cabin? How small is "small"? Were you bunked with other folks, I'd imagine? What was your kitchen setup?

I'll stop short of 20 questions

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by riceme

That sounds like an awesome adventure - thank you for sharing. What was it like living the dry raft cabin? How small is "small"? Were you bunked with other folks, I'd imagine? What was your kitchen setup?

I'll stop short of 20 questions

The cabin was quite nice IMHO. The only other option would have been a wall tent. It was maybe 400 sq ft. Half round cedar log built, wood paneled inside. The raft formed the floor and front "porch". I remember how clear and straight grained those massive planks were...hardly a knot anywhere. The cabin/raft still sat on the original log floats so it was 2-3 feet off the ground. Almost level! Basically a one room rectangle with a narrow entryway stuck on one end. Not plumbed, no power, an oil heater that ran off an outside tank. The entry had open hang space for wet coats and boots and an alcove for a seawater bucket flush toilet. Door between the entry and the rest of the cabin so that wasn't heated. Kept our Coleman-style cooler out there. I don't recall any trouble with bears but we kept a clean camp, burned or hauled trash to town, walked compost into the woods and buried it. We did have a bold, invading ermine all summer who left remains of his rodent meals right in the doorway for you to step on in sock feet. River otters had a den under the raft. Fairly noisy and stinky. Hauled fresh water from a glacial runoff stream a short way along the Craig road.

Simple built in kitchen (cabinets, countertop, dry sink, white gas stovetop with tank stored underneath) on the entryway end. Some sort of metal table and chairs in the middle, small windows on 3 walls. 4 bunks built into the opposite end wall. Just the PhD student and me, so the two lower bunks were our closets. Warmer to sleep in the uppers. Jar candles and Coleman gas lantern for light. The treat of the day was to heat the cabin for a few hours when we got back from hours working in the rain. Our clothes would never have dried otherwise.

We'd hauled something like 6 months of dry goods, personal gear, basic pots and pans, and field equipment in a 70s era Datsun PU in on the AMHS ferry. There was a car battery to keep a USFS radio charged and run a car stereo. Cassette music tapes and sometimes one or two regional stations if the atmosphere cooperated. A few times we picked up Mystery Theater broadcasts all the way from CA! It usually faded out right before the end so we never found out who did it. When one battery ran down we'd swap it with the battery in the truck and make a run into Craig to recharge it. Sometimes we'd buy fresh food from the ferry and every few weeks our USFS project manager visited with some fresh meat/ dinner treats. Didn't have daylight time to do much foraging or fishing, but I remember a couple of clam digs (testing the first one and waiting to see whether your lips got numb before eating any more), an occasional Dungeness crab, and learning how to prepare sea cucumbers and herring roe on kelp. I'll take either over fin fish any day.

We got to our research sites around Kasaan Bay with a 14' Boston Whaler skiff kept at the ferry dock. Spent every day crawling through clearcuts of varying ages comparing how well the mammal and bird populations were regenerating after the original cuts. One of us always carried a Ruger 44 mag revolver but I don't recall ever needing it.

Thanks for asking about the details...a nice stroll down memory lane!

[riceme]

Do you remember what kind of wood it was made out of? Just a summer raft/cabin, I'd guess? I love imagining how things used to be and listening to people's stories. Your story made me think of my dad, who grew up in a wall tent, and it made me feel a little nostalgic for old times. So I guess your stroll down memory lane sent me on my own stroll.

I spent the summers of my 20s working in and around clearcuts too, but I was working for the USFS, and did everything from timber surveys to road obliteration to the infamous spotted owl surveys.

I wouldn't have been able to stand not hearing the end of the mysteries on the radio. Most of us would take turns reading books to each other. At the time, my favorites to read at work were Louis L'Amour books. There's something enchanting about reading a good western when you're at camp.

Funny how some memories fade into the ether so quickly and others are forever etched in the hallways of your mind.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by riceme

Do you remember what kind of wood it was made out of? Just a summer raft/cabin, I'd guess? I love imagining how things used to be and listening to people's stories. Your story made me think of my dad, who grew up in a wall tent, and it made me feel a little nostalgic for old times. So I guess your stroll down memory lane sent me on my own stroll.

I spent the summers of my 20s working in and around clearcuts too, but I was working for the USFS, and did everything from timber surveys to road obliteration to the infamous spotted owl surveys.

I wouldn't have been able to stand not hearing the end of the mysteries on the radio. Most of us would take turns reading books to each other. At the time, my favorites to read at work were Louis L'Amour books. There's something enchanting about reading a good western when you're at camp.

Funny how some memories fade into the ether so quickly and others are forever etched in the hallways of your mind.

One reason I think these memories are so clear was because this was one of my first AK field research jobs. Also, my mother had ALS and was in the hospital on a ventilator. I wrote long detailed letters describing every aspect of our daily lives so she could enjoy everything so removed from her reality. My dad spent hours reading them aloud to her. He kept the letters. Many years later he gave them all back to me.

I'm fairly certain the cabin was cedar. It wouldn't have rotted as fast in that wet climate. No idea when it was built or floated to that particular spot, but got the impression there were others built by the same company moored in different areas. I remember somewhere else in SE driving past a protected cove where there was a group of similar ones. Some were lived in full time, others were short term rentals. A ramshackle maze of docks connected some to the shore, others needed a skiff to reach.

Lots of little crystal clear memories...

Getting up the nerve to clean that first bucket of sea cucumbers and actually eat them after dubiously shoving the fillets around a skillet much too long.

A huge home made enchilada feed cooked by one of the USFS rangers at their bunkhouse in Craig. Cooking was his stress relief. He'd order all the ingredients, cook for hours, and invite everyone he could find to polish them off.

The luxury of a hot shower and clean dry clothes that didn't carry the scent of fuel oil smoke. That wonderful time of day shucking out of your soggy field clothes, hot tea, Ramen, freeze dried veggie, chocolate bar dinner, curling up in a dry sleeping bag, reading by candle lantern surrounded by the scent of cedar wood, listening to the rain beating on the roof close overhead. Didn't have to go back out into it for another 12 hours.

A little ritual the student and I allowed ourselves after spending cold, rainsoaked days slithering through one particularly awful Maybeso clearcut. It was about 20 years post-cut and a jungle of slash, Devil's club, muskeg holes, rotting logs, and mosquitoes. We'd stand on the skid trail and cuss it out at the top of our lungs. Luckily no one around to hear it.

One of the Hydaburg road construction workers had a new helicopter. He dreamed up every excuse to take it for a spin. We thought he pushed the weather way too far and saw him ferrying culverts and other cargo in very sketchy conditions. He kept offering us rides but we both thought he was crazy and politely declined.

Had some great wildlife encounters...

The big black bear I bumped up against while crawling through a clearcut that probably left more wood as slash than it harvested. There was a tide-damaged Caterpillar bulldozer abandoned on the beach. The bear appeared from behind a pile of stumps about 10 feet away. It reared up and stared, but didn't threaten. I backed off by reflex, grabbed the PhD student by the coat (we usually stayed close together while working in the brush), and managed a recordbreaking retreat down to the beach seemingly without taking a breath. We stood there on the cobble shaking and just sucking in the air for quite a while afterwards. I remember the bear still standing there peering curiously at us before ambling off.

The ermine I caught in a box trap that had to be ear tagged. THAT was a fight! I didn't know what was in the enclosed trap at first. Almost always a vole or deer mouse. Stuck my hand through the one way door flap to lock the trip lever and he let me have it. Chewed my thumb up pretty well. When released, he didn't run off right away. He climbed up my leg, stared me right in the face, and gave me a screeching tongue lash before grabbing the remains of his vole lunch and strolling away. I've loved mustelids ever since. He had learned that those shiny metal boxes with closed doors meant a captive free lunch. We knew we caught him several times because of the ear tag.

The dessicated perfectly-feathered rufus hummingbird found in the windowsill of the cabin when we first arrived in the spring.

The pod of orcas that surfaced next to our skiff so close you could have touched their dorsal fins. They swam under and around the skiff for a few minutes (we could feel the pressure waves underneath) then went off to amuse themselves somewhere else.

[OneDawg]

That's all well and good - THANKS FOR HIJACKING MY THREAD.
Doesn't anyone know anything about Thorne Bay or this lodge?