The Deep Cove Cabin: Restoring Heritage, Maintaining Integrity
Don Huisman's pride is abundantly evident. A broad smile plays across his face and his voice swells with excitement as he leads the way down several flights of stairs towards a small log cabin nestled among the spruce below.
As Townsite Manager of Wasagaming and as the Cultural Heritage Manager for Riding Mountain National Park, Huisman is responsibile for the care and upkeep of hundreds of buildings within the park. Many of which possess national heritage value, such as the magnificient hand-hewn log Visitor Reception Centre built in the 1930s. But as we approach the cabin, it becomes obvious that his attachment to this place goes well beyond any kind of job responsibility.
For a period of time, early in his career as a rookie park warden, the Deep Cove Cabin was Huisman's home and even though it was showing more than 60 plus years of wear-and-tear, he grew very fond of the structure and it's setting. Work opportunities elswhere within the national park system led him away from the Riding Mountain for many years, but in his heart he knew that he had to return to it. When the chance finally came to do so, he was dismayed to discover the sorry state of the cabin. Over the intervening years since he lived in it, the cabin had been vandalized and neglected. Immediately, he made its restoration his personal mission.
But before investing thousands of dollars into this project, he had to come up with a plan that would ensure the cabin wouldn't become vandalized or neglected again. That's when he realized that the best way to care for the building was to have it used as much as possible. This realization then led him to develop an innovative artists-in-residence program centered on the cabin. With the hurdle cleared, he then turned his attention to finding ways to reduce the site's environmental impact, such as capturing sewage in a holding tank instead of just letting it run into Clear Lake a few meters from the front porch as was previously done.
As Huisman is quick to point out, maintaining ecological integrity and commemorative integrity are just two-sides of the same coin, at least within the context of Canada's national parks.