White Otter Castle

James Alexander McOuat, a Scottish-born trapper, built this between about 1903 and 1915 entirely alone on a lake with no road: four storeys of red pine logs, some sixteen metres long, cut, hauled and raised by one man using block and tackle. There are twenty-six windows, all of them freighted in. Why he built it has never been settled; the story usually told is a woman he expected to join him, or a taunt from a schoolteacher that he would die in a shack. He drowned in his fishing net in front of it in 1918 and was buried nearby. Volunteers restored the structure in the 1990s.

History

James Alexander McOuat, a hermit, trapper and fisherman, began the house single-handed in 1903, at the age of 51, and finished it in 1915, felling and cutting the red pine himself and hoisting the dovetailed beams, some weighing as much as 730 kilograms, into place with block and tackle; it stands three storeys high with a tower rising a further floor and has 26 windows, and it was restored in 1994 and again in 2021 (Wikipedia, White Otter Castle).

The main sights

• The four-storey log tower - built alone with block and tackle.
• The freighted windows - twenty-six windows carried in over water.
• The lakeside setting - a remote lake with no road access.
• McOuat's grave - the builder's burial place near the house.

When to go

June to September, when boats and float planes operate; the lake freezes in winter and access is by snowmobile. The paddle route from Atikokan takes a day or more each way.

Good to know

There is no road; reaching it means a float plane, a boat charter or a long paddle with portages. There are no facilities. The building is a shell, restored but empty.

Nearby

Quetico lies south; Atikokan is the nearest town.

Key facts