A Cabin In The Wild

When enthusiasm for home improvements is trumped by opinionated birds and the force of nature

- J.B. Mackinnon

THE FIRST IDEA WE GAVE UP ON was painting. After buying our cabin on the banks of the Skeena River in northern B.C. a decade ago, my partner, Alisa, and I had gotten all peppy about painting it yellow. Oh, butter yellow would be lovely, we said. With sage-green trim. Then we thought, Why bother? Our cabin was more of a shack, really, valued at zero dollars by tax assessors and more rustic than your average ice fishing hut. Everyone agreed the thing was a tear down, if it didn’t fall down first. I’m not exaggerating. Whenever we went to the cabin, we brought a tent in case we found it collapsed. It was not so much a cottage as a giant game of Jenga.