Raising the Roof

  When we first came on the scene in Hoonah, house fires were a common occurrence. It seems like there were two or three every year, especially during the winter time. I suspect most often that wood stoves were involved with the possibility that alcohol may have played a factor in some instances. In recent years, there fortunately have been considerably less fires, something that both homeowners and their insurance companies are grateful for I assume. A few years ago however, a home just a few houses away caught fire. It was a relatively new home, having been built in the past six or so years. The owner had just returned from spending the winter in Nebraska. No offense, but how is Nebraska any better than Alaska for spending the winter? Anyway, the first day home he decided to make a fire in the wood stove. I can't say whether any adult beverages were involved in the unfortunate incident or not, but the bottom line is, the house caught fire.  It was one of the larger homes in Hoonah, and at the time the owner wanted to make it even larger than the three floors it was comprised of. Fortunately, planning and zoning put the kibosh on that. While I applauded that decision, the same planning and zoning group allowed a trailer to be brought in from the logging camp and un-ceremoniously wedged between two newer homes. The trailer has a roof that extends well over two feet from the edge of the walls, no rafters, just the metal roofing, so that the snow, when it accumulated, bent the roof down on the ends so that it now covers about half the wall. To this date there still isn't an occupant in the trailer. Anyway, I digress. The house you see pictured in the above photos is the same one that caught fire a few years ago. At the time, the owner had family come up from Nebraska, and in record time they took off the roof and removed the third floor and replaced the roof. Now the new owner wants to restore it to a bed and breakfast and has decided a third floor would be an asset. I don't know all the ins and outs of this little project, but somehow the contractors managed to separate the roof from the rest of the house, and with hydraulic jacks and cribbing, raised the roof and are at this moment putting in the beams and studs and all the other house building materials  necessary to enclose the third floor. It was really strange. I went out fishing one day, came back two days later and saw this. I'm sure the contractors and owner are grateful that  a storm didn't choose now to make an appearance, or they might have been replacing the second and first floors as well. Never a dull moment in Hoonah.