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Building in the Alaskan Wild

fogtender

fogtender

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Well was messing with the movie maker on the computer last night and put together a short blurb on building my cabin that is about forty miles from nowhere.

Matter of fact, the Cabin is a few miles North of where the kid that died and left a Diary of his stupid acts and Penn made the Movie "Into the Wild" about him.

Anyway, there is a lot more involved in making the cabin than shown and I took hundreds more photos, but the thing would be a week long if I started to put them all in. Maybe I can get Roughwoods to do one on his cabin!

It spans about three years worth of work and limited summer access (until I got another airplane)


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2M-2WQ5BI"]YouTube - Building in the Alaskan Wild[/ame]
 
BigAl

BigAl

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Damn IT!!!:sad: I'm on dail up and can't view it ! Can you just invite me up for a week so I can check it out ???:whistling:
 
fogtender

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BigAl said:
Damn IT!!!:sad: I'm on dail up and can't view it ! Can you just invite me up for a week so I can check it out ???:whistling:
Click to expand...

Any time you want you are welcome. It is just about as polar oposite as your place down south is though, and your Krusti Kritter would be at home here....

Merry Christmas!
 
fogtender

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PBinWA said:
Very cool Foggy! That outhouse has to be a little drafty on the cold days! :eek:
Click to expand...

That is why you have a piece of blue foam with a hole cut out in the middle to sit on... instant heat, just the rest gets a bit frosted....
 
fogtender

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I have no idea how Youtube came up with the photo for the video when it was buried towards the back of the clip... So now it looks like it is titled "Rainbow on the outhouse", guess they have some kind of fetish for odd titles....
 
pixie

pixie

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Thanks for putting that together :chef:

Are your foundation piers just set on the ground or permafrost or dug down ?

I liked the music .:thumb:
 
fogtender

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pixie said:
Thanks for putting that together :chef:

Are your foundation piers just set on the ground or permafrost or dug down ?

I liked the music .:thumb:
Click to expand...

I enjoyed doing it, was fun.

Before I started to build, there was about two feet of snow on the ground as well as brush and trees. A forest fire had gone though the area about fifteen years earlier, so the bush was fairly dense but little trees for the most part.

Since the ground was frozen rock hard, I just used the dozer to scrap off the vegetation base down to the top of the root base. It is pretty solid ground under that with about ten to twelve inches of the root material and then a hard packed sand, which is unusual for much of Alaska which is a tundra/bog in most cases.

The Concrete blocks the cabin is sitting on are just on top of the root base, they have adjustable mounts on top of them in case they shift.

I took the loader bucket and used the tines to scrap off the top root base all around the cabin, and if all goes well, I plan on moving the cabin about sixty feet back where the root base is already removed so it is sitting on the dirt. Before that, I will drive a sand point well down for water, and then pull the cabin over that so I can put in a pitch pump or a electric one, haven't made up my mind yet.

Constant morphing of my plans depending on what I am doing to pay bills....

I kind of liked the bagpipes for a background music...
 
E

EastTexFrank

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That is beyond great, it's magnificent. What a view and what a project.

What is that music? The first tune especially is very familiar but I can't come up with the name. I'm just going back across to the house and start digging back through all my old Scottish folk music tapes. Man, it's driving me nuts. I've listened to it 4 times and still can't up with the title.
 
fogtender

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EastTexFrank said:
That is beyond great, it's magnificent. What a view and what a project.

What is that music? The first tune especially is very familiar but I can't come up with the name. I'm just going back across to the house and start digging back through all my old Scottish folk music tapes. Man, it's driving me nuts. I've listened to it 4 times and still can't up with the title.
Click to expand...

I will have to go back and check on it, but if I recall correctly it was something like "Across the Green" as part of the title.
 
E

EastTexFrank

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fogtender said:
I will have to go back and check on it, but if I recall correctly it was something like "Across the Green" as part of the title.
Click to expand...

Well that happens with Scots/Irish folk music. You get one traditional tune and several different lyrics.
 
fogtender

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EastTexFrank said:
Well that happens with Scots/Irish folk music. You get one traditional tune and several different lyrics.
Click to expand...

Looked up the name of the music and it was called "The wearing of the Green"... knew green was in there somewhere....
 
A

Av8r3400

Gone Flyin'
I can't come up with enough expletives to describe how cool that is!!!! :chef:

A whole 'nuther round of reasons why I hate you.
(Now I see why that little Citabria will be so awesome for you.)
 
fogtender

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79bombi said:
How long did it take you to drive the tractor in?
Click to expand...

It took two days, the temps started out at about zero in town, but was down to forty below at times once we crossed the river and headed out. Had to leave it on the trail overnight running at an idle at the halfway point. It was a very long forty mile trip.

Roughwoods was a great help too, he came along with his SnoTrac and hauled the fuel, a friend drove my Imp loaded with gear too.

It was a long couple of days, but it was also fun and nothing broke down on the trip which makes it a really good deal.

If I were to do it again, I would have welded snow cleats on the track to give it a bit better bite in the snow. That is where you weld about a third of one track cleat with about a one inch lip of steel in the middle, then the next one will have two welded at each end third, then back to the one all around the tracks.

Would have been better to put a few thousand pounds in the front bucket too since the backhoe made it a bit tail heavy breaking trail. In the photo you can see how it rides in the snow with the front loader bucket in the air. Would not go up the hills going forward because of the balance issues, but would back up with very little effort...

The photo with the runway starting to be cleared, shows where the tent camp was at, and the cabin as it was being built. The tent was moved over to Roughwoods property for him to stay in while he built his cabin the next year.
 

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fogtender

fogtender

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Redid the video and added a lot more photos of the building of the cabin. Went to upgrade the orginal and it got deleted without using the old address for the newer one. So here it is... again bigger and badder....:brows:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QviduLZv5uU"]YouTube - Building in the Alaskan Wild[/ame]
 
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