I’ve been reminiscing.

Specifically, about our ministry in Alaska in 2008. Our first residence in Alaska was supposed to be a ground-level, two-bedroom apartment within a couple of miles of the church. We soon found out that we’d be temporarily staying in a traditional Alaskan log cabin!

Not long before our arrival, the local bible school had acquired a triplex located beside their campus. The senior pastor helped us by negotiating with the president of the college, to obtain a lease for one of the newly acquired units.

They would rent out the three units, one of them to us until plans were set into motion on converting the units into staff or student housing.

This plan dove-tailed nicely in regards to the community, being on a bible college campus. Furthermore, the proximity to the church, at just over a mile. This being said, soon we would find out that our apartment wouldn’t be ready for a couple of months.

Thankfully, the college had a backup plan!

There happened to be a traditional Alaskan log home left on the property from when they acquired the land for the college. The plan was to eventually tear down the cabin and build a counselling center in its place. However, until then it was looking like the Norton family would be moving into a log cabin!

“How Alaskan is this!“

I said to my wife, who was sharing in my excitement.

The logs that held the bulk of the structure together were easily a foot and a half thick and thirty feet long. They had been stained marvellously so that each knot beautifully accented the wood’s grain.

True, the cabin might have had a bit of a lean to one side. It may also have had a few spots where ‘drafty’ would be an understatement. It also had a bit more mould than most people might be comfortable with. However, what would one expect from something as iconically Last Frontier as this old cabin?

In all seriousness, every once in a while Nicole and I still talk about that drafty cabin. We only lived there for a few months, then a hop, skip and a jump across the road to our unit in the triplex. Obviously, those few months were key months in our lives.

New baby, new ministry position, a new country; perhaps it all got wrapped up in that little log cabin.

The home eventually did get torn down a couple of years later, and they completed their planned counselling center project. Nevertheless, the location of that traditional Alaskan cabin holds a special place in our hearts and I thought about it often whenever I drove by.

Join the Conversation; Share Your Thoughts:

• What do you think of our first Alaskan

• home?