On the shore of Mendenhall Lake overlooking the Mendenhall Glacier, Forest Service staff cut a green and white ribbon spanning the stairs to a new recreational cabin on Wednesday. Booking opens Thursday morning.
It’s Juneau’s first Forest Service cabin named in Lingít. Jacqueline Pata is Vice President of the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which named the cabin Sítʼ Yá Hítʼ.
“We’re really glad that people are understanding and using the Lingít language more often,” Pata said. “Glad that we could look out here to Sítʼ Yá Hítʼ, the house in the face of the glacier.”
About 25 people filed into the echoey cabin after the ribbon cutting. The fresh lumber smelled like a Christmas candle.
Joanna Forst stopped by with two young kids. She lives in the Mendenhall Valley and said her family has been excitedly watching progress on the cabin build over the past year.
“I’m turning around to look at the view — I think just the placement of this cabin is beautiful — looking at the glacier, which we all know is something that draws people to Juneau every year,” she said.
Forst said she cross country skis here in the winter and her kids enjoy biking here in the summer. She hopes she can land a cabin reservation for her son’s sixth birthday over Labor Day weekend. Forest Service cabins can be booked up to six months in advance.
Pete Schneider is the recreation service specialist for the Forest Service in Juneau. He expects this cabin will get reserved more than any other in Southeast, including Windfall Lake, Dan Moller and John Muir cabins, which he said host visitors for close to 300 nights per year.
“Daydream about what it’s going to mean when you finally get lucky and get a reservation to this cabin,” he said to the small crowd gathered beneath the deck. “You’re like, ‘Oh, man, I did it,’ because we really expect this to be the highest-use cabin on the Tongass.”
This is the first of four Forest Service cabins to be built in Juneau as part of the Alaska Cabins Project. The agency initially planned to build five, but cancelled Herbert Glacier Cabin in part due to mining interests. Schneider said he expects another cabin to go up at the Mendenhall Campground within the next year.
According to Carolyn Auwaerter, the Tongass stewardship coordinator at the National Forest Foundation, November 2028 is the deadline for new cabins to be built under the Alaska Cabins Project.
Sítʼ Yá Hítʼ is 14 feet wide by 16 feet long, has two stories and around 10 people can sleep inside comfortably. Its outdoor gathering area can fit dozens.
According to the Forest Service, the project cost $810,000 and was shared by the agency, the National Forest Foundation, the Rasmuson Foundation, Coeur Alaska, the Avista Foundation, the Ford Bronco Wild Fund, and the family of Lynn Wegner.
Schneider said this cabin is unique in a few ways. The exterior siding is made of yellow cedar supplied by Icy Straits Lumber in Hoonah. The bottom floor is ADA accessible, with a ramp leading up to the large front deck.
“Then, of course, it’s got electricity,” Schneider said. “That’s a total first for us.”
There are lights inside and outside and an electric cove heater, in addition to the usual wood-burning stove. Schneider said it’s built to be durable for generations.
“Knowing that this area can flood with the glacier lake outburst … we designed this cabin to survive that flood,” he said.
Builders raised the electrical components, put the structure about 100 feet above sea level, and elevated it on concrete piers to protect it from damage.
