Thayer Lake South Shelter Cabin – Admiralty Island AK

Description

The Thayer Lake South Shelter Cabin is a historic cabin at the south end of Thayer Lake, in the Admiralty Island National Monument. It is one of the several cabins the Civilian Conservation Corps built in the Tongass National Forest for public recreation during the 1930s, and is part of the Admiralty Island Canoe Route.

A registration form of the National Register of Historic Places reports on the condition of the cabin as of 1995: “The Thayer Lake South Shelter Cabin is a three-sided Adirondack style recreation shelter. The cabin has a peeled log superstructure and shake walls and roof. The building’s present appearance matches its original appearance. The sill logs, not original, are rotten. When they sill logs were replaced, the rotten bottoms of the upright posts were simply cut off, lowering the shelter by about five inches. The roof and wall shakes are not original. The wall shakes, 25″ long, overlap. The bottommost wall shakes are rotten. The front of the shelter does not have shakes protecting the ends of the horizontal poles used as nailers for the wall shakes. Recently, a painted box was installed by the U.S. Forest Service for a visitors’ register. A fire ring is outside of the shelter. The natural setting has not changed since the 1930s. The shelter looks out over a reedy tributary lake of Thayer Lake that is cut off from the main lake body by a substantial beaver dam. An block-and-tackle apparatus of unknown age is rigged to help lift canoes over the dam.”