While attending a Rendezvous at Fort De Chartres, in southwest Illinois, I noticed a small log cabin shed built in the French style. Americans built their cabins by stacking logs horizontally and interlocking the corners with notches. The French pioneers built their log cabins by standing the logs upright (vertical) and pegged the top and bottom of each log to a horizontal footer and header. The open spaces between the logs were filled with stones and a chinking mixture of mud, clay, horsehair or cat-tails. This small building is a good example of French construction. The back half of this log cabin shed is being used as a chicken coop. The front half of the shed can be used to store tools or seeds or livestock feed. The original church (St Francois-Xavier) in my grandparent's village (Petite Riviere) at the foot of Le Massif, a popular Quebec ski resort, was constructed of vertical log walls in the early eighteenth century.
