Maclean ice house spans generations, restoration work celebrated

John Maclean stood next to a rather old looking cabin outside of Seeley Lake and reminisced.

It used to be a wonderful place for him and his sister to play. Six-foot piles of sawdust would leave traces in their hair, clothes and teeth. It also served as a summer landing spot for his father, renowned writer Norman Maclean.

"It looks like it's old," John's niece said after seeing the ice house earlier this spring.

"The jokes on her," Tom Attard, owner of Burlyman Creations and contractor for the restoration the ice house recently underwent, said on Instagram. "It looks like it's old, but it's not."

The ice house was restored through a concerted effort by local businesses including Bull Creek Forestry, Burlyman Creations and Natural Log Creations, along with the Maclean family and the Seeley Lake Historical Society. On Aug. 10, the historical society honored the work that went into the Maclean ice house in an effort to conserve local history.

The ice house was built in the 1920s by Rev. John Maclean, John's grandfather, as part of the family's Forest Service lease. An ice house was considered essential in the days before electricity, as John mentioned in his book, Home Waters - A Chronicle of Family and a River.

John said a local handyman would take a horse drawn sledge onto Seeley Lake in the winter, cut blocks of ice and store them in sawdust in the ice house, where icy bits could be recovered as late as September.

"We had this horrible old handmade wheelbarrow that could barely move with a big iron wheel on it," John said. "My dad would roll that thing down here in the evenings and get ice so they could get a block of ice for their drinks and put the block in the ice box to keep food cold."

The ice house was used in this way until the late 1950s when electricity and refrigerators came to Seeley Lake.

John said that their ice house seemed unique in the area as he didn't remember seeing any other ice houses around Seeley Lake. His dad commented years ago that he didn't know what to do with the ice house. His choices were to spend a lot of money on it or tear it down, and nothing was ever done.

John decided to take it on as a project.

John said the best thing about the restoration is that it was a community project that received enormous support from the historical society and local builders. He touted the work of Tom Browder, the historical society's secretary, who helped write grants and found Attard of Burlyman Creations to contract the project.

"You don't take something like this on alone," John said. "Working with the historical society and local people is what made this project possible. You have to work as part of the fabric. The Seeley community made it possible to have this work done."

Fishing partner of John's and Lutheran minister Jeff Stoops, from Cascade, Montana, performed an ice house blessing and offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the workmanship and for future inspiration for others to preserve the history of the area. During the blessing John dipped a larch branch into a bucket of holy water and swished it over the logs of the ice house.

"There's an old tradition among fly fishers about holy water," Stoops said. "It's not the liturgical holy water, but some favorite part of the stream. This is authentic Blackfoot River water which John and I collected and consider holy water."

As John introduced the history of the ice house, he noted that all the structures on their property have different joining methods for the corners of the buildings, which may indicate the progression of construction. The cabin had the most intricate hand-hewn joints. The ice house joints weren't as complex but obviously hand-hewn.

The reconstruction project was massive as only 25% of the original logs were reusable, said Attard, from Burlyman Creations, on Instagram.

"I remember standing where we are in the 1960s with my dad," John said. "Nothing had ever been done to maintain or restore the ice house. It hadn't been oiled or kept from falling apart. In earlier photos the ice house looked like a ship that was going down. The stern went down a little farther every year."

The Seeley Lake Historical Society contracted with Leelyn and Teresa Cahoon, owners of Bull Creek Forestry, for replacement logs, which the Cahoons donated. The Cahoons went through over 20 loads of logs to find the appropriate beetle-killed lodgepole where the bark had fallen off naturally to match the original logs. The original logs have no drawknife marks from removing the bark, so the replacement logs needed to match.

The ice house was dismantled, and all original logs were labeled to keep them in the right place. Then the logs were hauled to Kevin Peterson's Natural Log Creations in Hungry Horse. The structure was then rebuilt at Peterson's place using additional new logs where necessary. After the structure was complete, all the logs were labeled, the ice house was deconstructed and taken to the Maclean site where it was reconstructed in the original location.

A new foundation was built using rocks buried 18 inches deep, packed in with gravel. A treated plate was laid over the foundation to place the logs on so it would not sink. It looks like it's sitting on the ground, but it's not.

The roof had been set aside and was replaced on the finished ice house. The original style of tar paper on the roof was put into place.

"To say that I'm happy about it far underestimates how I feel," John said.

To close out the ceremony Cheri Thompson, Seeley Lake Historical Society president, shared hopes for a future ice cutting event in the winter.

"If we can get someone to help us that knows how to harvest ice off the lake, we hope to do that this winter and fill the ice house," Thompson said. "A game (camera) will be placed so people can view the ice house from the museum."