My father-in-law Claus had asked that the little log cabin he built for his grandkids at Horseshoe Lake stay in the family. Before he passed away in 2017, Claus had joined Nadine to scout out a possible site for it in the woods near our cottage on Minden Lake.

The next summer, my mother-in-law Ann was preparing to sell the family cottage. She kindly offered to pay for the cabin move.

This promised to be a one-of-a-kind road trip, with a few twists and turns.

Built to last

It was a tiny, pretty cabin, yes.  But it was built to last — for at least 100 years, Claus had predicted. The cabin weighed many tons — not a job for few friends over a case of beer on a sunny Saturday.

We spoke to our contractor Bob, who had built our place at Minden Lake. There were two options — dismantle the cabin piece by piece and rebuild it on site, or pick it up intact and move it. Option two had a few challenges attached to it, but seemed the better way to go to keep it simple, and to honour the cabin’s integrity.

Bob referred us to a crane specialist in the Minden area.  Chuck Hopkins lives just down the road from us and owns several massive cranes used in construction around the Minden-Haliburton area.

Sizing up the job

Chuck came by to take stock. The cabin would need to be wrapped in a giant sling — like a baby carried by the proverbial stork.  It would then be craned on to a trailer and trucked to our cottage. Finally the cabin would be picked up again by crane to be set on its new site.

Chuck advised to leave the front porch intact even though the wider load presented some potential challenges. We did a final clear-out of the cabin’s contents and disconnected the power.

Chuck advised he would  move the cabin during a break in his construction schedule. One fateful morning in summer 2018, I got a ping on my phone with this photo attached:

The cabin was on the road!

Earlier that morning, Chuck and his crew had roped up the cabin with heavy straps and lifted it onto a flatbed trailer:

Over hill and dale

The cabin was hauled by Chuck’s pick-up truck up a very steep section of McCracken’s Lane at Horseshoe Lake.  It wound its way past the world-class white-water rapids of the Gull River, then hung a left on our cottage road: Summer Lane. When the cabin hit a tight spot on our lane, our neighboring farmer, Casey Cox, came with heavy equipment to bend over a tree to let it pass. The only stop missing on this five-kilometre drive was a detour to the Minden Timmies drive-through.

All told, it was a fine bit of motoring for the little cabin that could…

Chuck and his crew used the crane to place the cabin temporarily on our front lawn, then came back the following week, this time with two cranes. In a delicate demonstration of mighty-machinery skills, they “walked” the cabin inch by inch down a slope next to our cottage to its new site on a level gravel base in the woods. Half the battle was keeping the cranes properly positioned so as not to topple along with their load.

The mission was complete — the eagle had landed. Thanks Ann and Claus!

Nadine and I rolled up our sleeves and spent a morning digging a 40-foot trench, 2 feet deep, to house a new electrical supply. The 1990s red shingle roof was updated. Beds were made and the interior dusted and nested. Next spring we would work on some stone steps and a little garden terrace to nest the cabin in place.

The log cabin was ready for its first winter on Minden Lake.