photo by kate perkins Photographer Doug Ohman read from his book "Cabins of Minnesota" during his presentation at the Warehouse in Pine River Saturday, Jan. 14. Ohman photographs buildings and landmarks across Minnesota, and presented many of his Minnesota cabin photos and the stories behind them.

Ohman gave a presentation at the Warehouse in Pine River Saturday, Jan. 14, called "Escape to the Lakes: Minnesota Cabins."

Ohman was commissioned by the Minnesota Historical Society to photograph for a series of books known as the "Minnesota Byway Series." The books include themes like

"Barns of Minnesota," "Churches of Minnesota" and "Libraries of Minnesota," among others.

He now presents slideshows of his work around Minnesota as part of the Legacy Program and Kitchigami Regional Library.

Perhaps equally as interesting as Ohman's photos are the stories behind them. In the case of Minnesota cabins, Ohman suggests that behind the cabins themselves is a culture unique to Minnesota.

"We know what that phrase- going to the cabin, going to the lake -means," Ohman said. "I love that phrase, and people who aren't from Minnesota don't quite know what that means."

Ohman also used the phrase "cabin fever" not as the need to get out of the cabin, but rather to get into it.

"It is ingrained in us. We get cabin fever and the only cure is to go to the cabin," he said.

The cabins that Ohman presented Saturday and put in his book, he said, are not the cabins normally found in "Cabin Life" magazine- rather they were smaller, more modest cabins.

Perhaps the most modest of cabins presented was an Airstream parked on the edge of Lower Whitefish Lake. The Airstream had a permanent roof built over it's top. "To me this was the authentic cabin experience," Ohman said. "I think it's good for the soul to get away."

Ohman certainly showed some cabins that got away from it all. One was a cabin on Spider Island, one of the few islands on Lake Mille Lacs. It was a red cabin nestled on the island, pretty typical in looks.

Ohman was going to boat out to the cabin on his own, after being offered the chance to photograph it, but was told that he couldn't go by himself, he had to have a guide.

As it turned out, the cabin was once a hideout for bootleggers during prohibition. Concrete blocks are laid out in the water all around the island, and to navigate to the cabin there, one must know exactly where to go. Ohman said that he was even shown a cellar where the alcohol was hidden.

A cabin on Leech Lake had Ohman trekking through the woods without a trail. Directed to park his car on the side of the road in a particular place and walk in a straight line toward the lake, Ohman walked up to a large, whitewashed, two-story cabin.

A broken-down fence for a garden was there, and a tiny dock, tilted into the water, looked rickety and forgotten. It was an abandoned resort, and at one time this building was the main lodge. Abandoned back in the 1920s, Maple Springs Resort sits on the shore in the middle of the woods, so overgrown with unkempt vegetation that there was no longer even a road to get to it.

Ohman himself didn't have a cabin growing up, but he still had a cabin experience, which he shared. Showing a small, white, one-room cabin with green trim, Ohman explained that this was the cabin he stayed in when he was sent to bible camp at a young age.

Ohman's presentation showed that having a cabin experience did not require one to have a cabin, making the point that cabins, as well as cabin experiences, come in many different forms.

Ohman praised Pine River and surrounding area residents as living the cabin experience. "You guys are lucky. You have found this every day," he said.