Houses

People live on the local islands for various reasons. Some work in the timber or fishing industries, some love the quiet. Every now and then, I see a house I like and I take a photo.

This guy is all-in for solar, with a little wind power thrown in for good measure.

This is a float home. A hundred or more years ago, a logger would fell some trees, build a raft, then build a cabin on it. He might have been a bachelor, or he might have had a family. Either way, when the work moved to a new part of the endless forest, he would hitch his boat to the raft and row to the new location. Sometimes twenty miles away.

Quite a collection of floating buildings.

Not sure what’s the story here. Looks like the whale-watching boat is getting told something about the fallen cabin.

If you’re interested in what life was like for the unimaginably tough men who made their living as hand loggers, not to mention their wives who had to do everything else, I have a few book recommendations.

The Curve of Time, M. Wylie Blanchet
Full Moon Flood Tide, Billy Proctor
Heart of the Rain Coast, Billy Proctor
The Inlet: Memoirs of a Modern Pioneer, Helen Piddington
Passage to Juneau, Jonathan Raban

You can still find Billy Proctor welcoming visitors to his “museum” filled with items collected over a lifetime of beachcombing. But you’ll need a boat as he lives in a tiny house, on a tiny cove on Gilford Island.

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