SKINNING TEEPEE POLES

We began three years of mountain living in an aging hand-built 15' x 15' log cabin perched above the highway surrounded by a grand stand of lodgepole pines. Those pines, so aptly named for their contribution to innumerable cabins throughout the Rocky Mountains, sang in the winds, and bent gracefully to accomodate the storms that passed through. Standing not more than three feet from one another,about 8" in diameter at the butt, and rising to a 1/2-inch spire 30 feet off the ground, they looked to us like a quick fix for teepee poles, so we could finally start living on the earth.

Jack, our host, was a tall, slow talking logger with a college education and a trust fund. His day started at 4 AM, and his feet went into his heavy logging boots before they hit the floor. Three steps into his morning routine and our baby would wake up, since she was tucked into a cardboard box on the floor of the cabin. We'd haul her into our sleeping bag and I'd nurse her back to sleep, while Jack stomped around laying a fire in the wood stove, and fixing food for his sunrise to sunset day. Finally he'd leave in his little truck. Not one for company, he'd given us a deadline: three weeks.

We started scouting for level ground near water, relatively close to the highway, where we could pitch a teepee. As greenhorns, it all looked possible: thousands of acres of property, numerous logging roads to explore and lots of live water. With Jack's permission we began felling dead lodgepole from the stand behind the house and built sawhorses to lay them on. He loaned us a "draw" knife, built specifically to take bark off logs. The 12-inch-wide arched blade was sharp, with handles on either side. It looked easy, just draw it against the grain of the wood, and off came the bark. And it was easy, essentially, but we needed 26 poles, each 25' long. The days dragged on peeling in the evenings, after my partner got home from work, and on weekends. Our backs ached and we built blisters, and then calluses, on our California hands.

We found our new home near Rainy Lake, 17 miles north of Seeley. It was Forest Service land, level, shade and sun, and the lake was easily accessible for our water needs. We were north of a campground, and although it was public land, few visitors wandered in the little dirt road into the meadow. Best of all, a family of loons lived on the lake. The teepee went up on a stunning June day, every step followed faithfully from a dog-eared copy of Laubin's book, the Bible of teepee living. A Forest Service employee came to check us out within about two weeks. He welcomed our enthusiasm, gave us some pointers, and said he'd be back every other Monday to take the garbage! Our dreams were coming true.

The daily routine tasks were anything but boring. Getting water could lead to spotting a fawn, or the loons. Building fire meant putting our daughter on my back to collect "squaw" wood, noting the 3-petalled creamy white trillium in blossom, smelling the lemony oregon grape flowers, or conversing with camp robber jays. It was early June. The woods were finally warming up, and the balsam fir offered an incense better than anything I'd used in our previous life. We'd dreamed this picture, and manifested it.

All was well until the rain started. We didn't know June was the rainiest month on the year. And we didn't know our teepee was not waterproofed!