April 3, 1996

Well, I haven't written in this for a long time. As you can imagine, we have all been quite busy. The map to Florida caused quite a furor in the village. People have been drawing copies of the map on huge slabs of snow and setting off in search of "Florida". I tried to explain that the maps will not last, but alas, many people think I am just trying to keep them away from their Utopia... silly villagers...

Meanwhile, we had a very big snowstorm which blew over the huts we were making and now the snow is melting and the remains of the huts are starting to stink. We will have to completely rebuild them.

Have I ever told you how we make our summer huts?

We follow the Ways of the Ancestor, an in-depth manual on village summer hut making:

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(p.189, Vol.5, The Ways of the Ancestor) Making the Summer Hut
by Me (the original village ancestor)

Day One - Thinking about the situation and fretting

Well, all that snow has melted finally and I find myself here in the middle of nowhere alone with nothing but this pen and pad of paper for company. I am surprised the *&#$@# pen lasted this long, but it has. I would knock on wood, but the wood is still somewhat frozen and it would really hurt.

So now where the heck am I going to live? I really don't know. It is pretty much hopeless. OH GOD!!! I am such a fool! If only I weren't so simple-minded, perhaps I could think of a way out of all of this Canadian wilderness...

Ok... Think Think Think Think Think... I managed to live in a simple hut of snow all winter... What can I live in in the summer??? Maybe a mud hut? Nah... I might get lice or something disgusting like that... I could make a straw hut! But then again, there is no straw here.

Day Two - a Plan emerges from my brain

Hey, there is hope for me yet... Today a man came to me and said "I have a cartload of rat pelts"... I didn't know quite how to respond... "Rat pelts?" I repeated
"Yes"
"So?"
"So you can finally make your house kiddo!"
"Out of rat pelts?"
"Well, what were you going to make it out of?"
"Oh."
"We have lots of them cause we kill them at the Alberta border"

The man left me with many stinking rat pelts. He sold me a needle and thread and said "There ya go slim. Go nuts with it!"

Many Days thereafter

I spent the next two weeks sewing rat pelts together. It took about a hundred of them to make a big square blanket. I hung the rat pelt blanket up in some trees leaving some of the pelts hanging down like this: The diagram was destroyed in the great "Oh, No... What did Freddy do???" fire of '34. I think you can imagine it though.

So now I finally have a home... YAY!!!
I hope that guy comes back next spring...
Well, I am off to have a nice nap... write more later...
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Well, what do you think? I am off to dry out my roof and reconstruct the hut.

Home, Rachelle