Fort Norman (Apr 24/06) - Leonard Masuzumi looked at the crushed mess that had once been his dream bush cabin and realized: here was three years work and he had yet to spend the night.

Heavier than normal snowfall in the Sahtu is being blamed for the roof cave-in, but Masuzumi was at first so incredulous that he thought it had been sabotaged.

"I was at a loss for words. I didn't know what the hell to think or say. I just couldn't believe it," Masuzumi said recently.

"Now that I've been through it, it looks like there was too much snow on the roof," he said.

The stick-built cabin -- made with processed lumber, not logs - was 24 by 24 feet with an eight by 12 foot addition.

"Now there's two walls broken and it's basically a write-off," Masuzumi said.

"It's a total mess."

The cabin is on the Keel River, about 50 miles east of Tulita.

"I was hoping to move into it this summer, but that's out of the question now," Masuzumi said, figuring he had put $12,000 in materials into the building.

The up and down temperatures caused the snow to compact.

"It was rock hard, like cement," Masuzumi said.

He had been working on the cabin bit by bit and was just about to install wiring. "The collapse just missed the generator," he said.

Although he's asked about it, there won't likely be any avenues for compensation.

"There might have been if I were a full-time trapper and it had gone by fire," he said.

But one thing Masuzumi is clear about is that it will be rebuilt.

"I've come this far. I've overcome a lot of obstacles in life, so I'm not going to give up," he said.

"To give up is to die."