Outhouse memories

My eyes automatically focused on the sheet of paper before me and I started to read — again — “The Old Outhouse” by neighbor Noel Hanson.

“Its walls may be tilted and faded. / In winter it’s covered with snow / But, when the indoor place is not working, / Then out the winding path we must go.”

Even at temperatures near zero and my bare skin hovering above the ice crystals on the seat, I read this poem tacked in front of me every time I visit the outhouse. Soon I might have all nine verses memorized.

My dad and I were enjoying a few days at his cabin on Kenai Lake and since Dad owned the cabin long before I was born, this particular outhouse and I have an extensive history. I remember Mom helping me onto the seat when I too young to climb up on my own. Twenty years later, my husband Gary and I moved into the cabin when our oldest child was 3, and I emptied the “honey bucket” into this same outhouse.

Today, after I returned to the comfort of my cozy chair by the warmth of Dad’s Riteway woodstove, I found myself thinking about my family and the whole outhouse experience. For people whose lives are reaching into the 21st century, we still depend on a lot of primitive plumbing.

The previous Sunday, Dad and I had decided to visit another small cabin of his a few miles away in Cooper Landing. After church and a cup of coffee, there was a choice between using the church outhouse or the one at Dad’s little cabin. I choose the church outhouse with its shoveled pathway. I didn’t know what a wonderful choice I’d made until we pulled up to the cabin. I’d forgotten that the outhouse had been temporarily placed facing the road and neighbors — with no door!

In 1985, Gary and I took our visiting relatives to the Kenai Lake cabin during Easter vacation. We thought that using an outhouse would be a novel part of the Alaskan experience for Gary’s three California nieces, ages 12, 11 and 9. We didn’t find out until later that the neighbors had taken pity on them and invited them to use their indoor facilities whenever they had a need. So much for roughing it.

Growing up in Glennallen, our family had more than one outhouse, but thankfully we also had a functioning bathroom in our trailer home. One cold winter, though, when I was a teenager, our water system froze up during a weekend trip to Anchorage. The rest of that winter Mom made a morning trip out to the outhouse to empty the “honey bucket” before we all left for school. I should have been more thankful for that Mom-powered indoor plumbing arrangement!

I can understand the happiness about a toilet located indoors, but back in 1974 when Gary and I were setting up housekeeping on raw land near Fairbanks, I remember being happy when we finally acquired a real outhouse. No more perching over a downed tree.

We repeated the whole tree-to-outhouse upgrade two years later when we built on raw land in California. Gary built a spacious, sturdy outhouse and then nailed his Alaska black bear hide to the outside wall.

Alaska inspires great outhouses such as the ones pictured in “Outhouses of Alaska” by Harry Walker. We even have outhouse races featuring ridiculously fancy outhouses on skis during various winter festivities, including the Willow Winter Carnival, the Anchorage Fur Rondy and at Chatanika north of Fairbanks. But the outhouses in my life have always been stationary, of the practical variety.

And I want the fur nailed on the wall, not on the seat — even at 40 below. I’ve heard tales of the fur-lined seat in an outhouse by a cabin back in the woods behind my previous house in Slana, but I don’t like the idea. I’m a clean fanatic. Instead of fur, sheepskin or even Styrofoam, I like the routine I learned from another Slana family. They keep the toilet seat on a nail by the back door of their home. Whenever anyone has to use the outhouse, they take a warm seat with them!

When he found out I was writing about outhouses, Dad told me about his most unique outhouse experience. He was deer hunting near Onion Bay on Kodiak Island a couple of years ago. The cabin featured a rustic three-holer outhouse, built at the edge of a rock bank next to the water.

When the tide came in, the rocks were efficiently washed clean! Stormy weather made white caps on the water, and blowing snow and the bitterly cold wind howled up off the water through the three holes. Dad said it seemed like a good idea to plug up one of the holes by sitting down, just to make the place a little warmer. He never shared an outhouse visit with anyone, and he had a hard time trying to imagine three old guys sitting there having a conversation even during warmer weather.

All this thanks to “The Old Outhouse” poem, tacked on the wall of a 60-year-old outhouse near a cabin on Kenai Lake.

Maraley McMichael is a longtime Mat-Su Valley writer and resident.