Her log house is on a hill in the woods, away from the lakefront homes that collapsed like matchsticks in the hurricane.

Mr. Beauvais, then 65, had spent a lifetime describing himself as “half French, half Indian,” or Métis, and he had grown up with his grandparents in a log house in a Métis settlement.

Calling themselves the Walden Group, they bought the property for $900,000, property records show, and built a 2,923-square-foot log house for fishing vacations.

In the afternoon, as the sun was setting, we decided to end the day at a restaurant called Sälen Original, a log house with a high-pitched roof tucked on the side of the mountain.

My husband and I guess the tree is about the age of our old log house, circa 1860, but we’re not sure.