The Log Cabin: An Adventure in Self-Reliance, Individualism, and Cabin Building

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I am currently building a Cabin and found Len McDougals book intresting. Whatever his publisher paid him for this story could not be enough money for me. Having previously lived in Michigan for 23 years, it brought back some fond memories of both camping and the bugs. I will most likely purchase another one of his books.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I am currently building a Cabin and found Len McDougals book intresting. Whatever his publisher paid him for this story could not be enough money for me. Having previously lived in Michigan for 23 years, it brought back some fond memories of both camping and the bugs. I will most likely purchase another one of his books.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book with an incredible story.
Review: Probably most people have fantasized about what it would be like to build and live in a log cabin the way our forefathers did, but almost no one ever does. Len McDougall did, and the stories he relates of that experience are just incredible. The brutal labor, swarms of biting insects, the injuries and loneliness, encounters with dangerous animals, and the sheer unfettered freedom he found all make this book a must-have for anyone who reads.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book with an incredible story.
Review: Probably most people have fantasized about what it would be like to build and live in a log cabin the way our forefathers did, but almost no one ever does. Len McDougall did, and the stories he relates of that experience are just incredible. The brutal labor, swarms of biting insects, the injuries and loneliness, encounters with dangerous animals, and the sheer unfettered freedom he found all make this book a must-have for anyone who reads.

Rating:
Summary: You won't want to put this book down!!!
Review: This book is great, McDougall's writings put you right into the woods! If you ever wanted to escape the city life and head for isolation in the woods you will enjoy this book. And if you ever thought that being self-reliant was a piece of cake you need to explore the chapters of this book, written by an experienced woodsman. I Highly recomend this book!!!

Rating:
Summary: The toughest book I've ever written
Review: This book wasn't really that hard to write, but getting the story contained between its covers was the most difficult job I'd ever untaken. Although I was reasonably fit when I began, I lost 17 pounds in the first 3 weeks, despite a ravenous diet that averaged about 4,000 calories per day. Each log was cut from a standing tree that I felled with only an axe. The trunks were then cut to 15-foot lengths, and the quarter-ton wall logs hauled up to 100 yards through cedar swamp to the building site, where each was notched in 4 places and hoisted into place on the walls. Between building the cabin, digging a 10-foot well, constructing a fireplace, and then living there for 15 months, this was the most rugged, demanding experience of my life. But now I have an idea of what it took to be a homesteader or trapper in the 1800s, and that was the goal of the project. I don't recommend that anyone do the same, and I'll never do it again (not without a chain saw and power tools), but this story was an adventure I'll never forget.