Otter Lake

This log cabin was built by our great-grandfather, Big Mike Quinlan, if I remember correctly. He was a logger and this was their main logging camp. It was referred to as Camp Comfort. Nana inherited it from him and she added more comfort ... an indoor toilet, for instance. She had a pre-fab bunkhouse built behind the cabin, where I spent some time with my cousin Nina exchanging our knowledge of sex when I was 12 (my knowledge was VERY limited).

Nana willed the cabin and land to her four children, of whom only three were interested in spending the money to keep it up and to pay the taxes on it. Lou-Lou sold her share to the other three. Then I am not entirely sure who dropped out, I think maybe Uncle Bill, and there were two.

However, those two had many children between them. Ten, if memory serves. The property could not be willed to ten children and thence to their heirs, and the costs of upkeep and taxes were high, so finally Mom and Uncle David sold the property.

We, as Mom's children, were given some money each from the sale of the cabin. I remember talking to an Indian (I do not use the term Native American, since technically, I am a native American myself) about the money. I said how ironic it was that this land which had belonged to his people had then been appropriated and utilized and then it became this cash in my hand. I felt a bit odd, like the money should properly belong to the people who had been there originally, but I spent it anyway!