Carved in history

I have always loved the history of Manninen’s Cabins and how my grandfather, a young man who had emigrated in his early 20s from Finland, married a girl from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and decided to build cabins on a lake where his in-laws had homesteaded the land.

Carvings on some of the cabins are indelible reminders of their history.

These two carvings that I discovered this spring on the Kaksi (No. 2) cabin are tokens of decades past. Manninen’s Cabins, known originally as Otter Lake Tourist Cabins, officially opened in 1937 with only the Yksi (No. 1) cabin in place. The Kaksi cabin was under construction at the time so I expect that the 1938 carving on its north wall shows the year of its completion.

The later carving from 1969 is tucked within the large corner logs toward the front of the cabin. This carving especially makes me think back on that time in history: Vietnam War, the Beatles, Woodstock, walking on the moon, JFK assassination, and MLK’s “I have a dream” speech and his assassination just five years later in 1968.

The 1960s were an especially impactful time in this country, and the world. And these little log cabins on a lake in the U.P. have been here through it all.

I think of all the people who have entered their doors and laid their heads to rest here amid all the proud and horrifically sad days in our history. And there will be more.