Woodsman Jimmy McOuat completed this house in 1915 when he was sixty years old. Ever since, people have wondered why and how he built it. McOuat claimed that, as a child in the Ottawa valley, he was once scolded "Ye'll never do no good! Ye'll die in a shack!" and that he resolved late in life to avoid such a fate. Single-handedly, he felled trees, winched them from the woods and hewed them square. With block and tackle, he raised massive logs onto platforms and into place. Roofing and windows were hauled in across fifteen portages from Ignace. McOuat drowned nearby in 1918, leaving this wilderness mansion as his monument.

Location

On the northeast shore of White Otter Lake, southwest of Ignace and northwest of Atikokan

Themes

• Buildings and structures