One Old House Full To The Brim

When I am out picking the countryside, I get talking with people. It is part of the business, and a component with which leads are found. 

Plus, stories of all kinds tend to pop up. 

Some are funny, others are drama packed, a few are life enriching, and there are many that are highly educational.

Then there are some that are like this one.

On one of my trips, I was travelling in a remote area, and to my dismay hit drizzling rain. However, I ended up doing some scouting, and door knocking, and after very little success, I stopped at one farm yard. After a some conversation with the owners, and a tour about their property, I ended up spending much of a day some great folks. I hope to also reconnect with them in the future.

They happen to own what had been originally multiple smaller properties. They accumulated and put them together into one larger land holding over their some years in the area. This plain, but quaint little cottage was on one of them.

 Any old structure I see, in my mind, contains potential for treasure....

So I inquired about it, and got to see inside it.

This one was chock full...

But not of treasure.

What follows is the "Cole's Notes" version of the story related to me:
It was built in the early-ish 1900s by a young man..

A young man in love.

He constructed it entirely by hand, with walls built of logs chopped from the bush land around it. He carved out a yard site for a future homestead for he and his bride-to-be, in the remote backwoods, but part of a tiny community of like minded people carving out an existence in the woods.

View of the home's log wall structure, visible in the back of closet/pantry.

 As I said, it was full...but not of treasure.

Then what was it full of, you ask?

Actually, it is not "full," per se...

It is overflowing.... 

With a million pieces of one man's heart.
 
You see, when the home was finished, and the couple were soon to be wed, the woman deserted the young man, and left the community, all to be with another man.


A house built with love was never occupied. 

A heart had shattered.

A house never made into a home. 

A window that no one would ever gaze out with their partner at the life they built together.

One of the many quaint window details that would never be admired by a resident.

A view of the kitchen from the living room. The living room would hear no music, nor laughter; and the kitchen would never fill with mouth watering aromas of home-cooked meals and giggles of  a flirting, playful young couple. (The liquor bottle on the left and can on the floor is a contribution by a squatter/transient.)

What happened to the heartbroken groom-to-be?

He went to live with his brother. 

Neither he, nor his brother, ever married. 

Both remained bachelors their entire lifetimes. 

However, they stayed in the community.

They lived their entire lives within a country mile of this building.

It is a hand hewn testament of love, carved out of a tiny piece of the Canadian wilderness...

Which became only a little known monument to heartbreak.