FORT ROCK —

I don’t know what I expected to find at Cabin Lake, but this wasn’t it.

Here at the edge of Oregon’s Outback, where forest meets sage-covered rangeland north of Fort Rock and east of La Pine, stands a cluster of yellow-clapboard cabins in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.

There’s no lake at Cabin Lake, unless you count a tiny watering hole for cattle on the other side of Forest Road 18. There is no resort, although a carefully constructed bird-watching blind rises behind an all-but-abandoned bunkhouse.

Nevertheless, former Forest Service officer Les Joslin was excited to have me join him on a visit to one of his old haunts.

Joslin and I approached from the south, following a gravel road north past the ancient volcanic-tuff crater of Fort Rock. After a drive of about 8 miles, we arrived at the complex of eight buildings, its gabled, wood-shingle roofs rising among junipers and ponderosa pines.

Built as the Cabin Lake Ranger Station, this compound — 40 miles southeast of Bend — was the headquarters of Deschutes National Forest’s Fort Rock Ranger District between 1921 and 1945. The existing structures were erected mainly in the mid-1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, although the bunkhouse and a pump house date from 1923.

There is a good-sized ranger’s residence, along with two smaller residential cabins on concrete foundations. The shutters of a warehouse feature the pine tree motif that is so often found on structures built for the U.S. Forest Service by the CCC. Also within the complex are a maintenance shop and a gas house, where Forest Service vehicles were refueled.

But there’s no gas today. Indeed, the compound is uninhabited.

Joslin told me that in the years that preceded World War II, Cabin Lake was the hub of logging operations in Deschutes National Forest. Sales of ponderosa pines to Bend’s giant Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon mills were administered from here, he said.

After Fort Rock Ranger District headquarters were moved to Bend in 1945, Cabin Lake continued to be used as a guard station and Forest Service work center. In recent years, however, it has fallen out of use and onto hard times.

“The Cabin Lake compound has potential for self-sustaining use, as both a recreation resource and a fire-management resource,” said Joslin, whose book “Uncle Sam’s Cabins,” was published in a revised edition last year. “I hope the Forest Service agrees, and pursues renovations needed to return these structures to use.”

Joslin proposed making the residences available for rental by hunters, birders and Off-Highway Vehicle enthusiasts. “And renovating the warehouse — as crew quarters and engine bay for a wild-fire engine crew — could improve initial attack response times on wildfires at that end of the forest,” he said.

In Fort Rock, 88-year-old Don Franks — a Deschutes National Forest fire-control specialist from 1946 to 1975 — was less optimistic. “The historical society in Fort Rock made a very strong proposal to the Forest Service, but never received a response,” he said. “We offered to take over management if they could bring it up to a minimal standard of maintenance. But I still walk through the complex and check things, and I email the ranger if I notice any problem.”

Old Smokeys

“Uncle Sam’s Cabins” is subtitled “A Visitor’s Guide to Historic U.S. Forest Service Ranger Stations of the West.” It gives background on and tells the individual stories of 92 Forest Service outposts in a dozen Western states.

Joslin — a 70-year-old retired naval officer and former instructor at Central Oregon Community College and Oregon State University — has been captivated by the Forest Service since 1950, when he was 7 years old. “I heard a radio news report about a bear cub rescued from a fire in New Mexico,” he recalled. “That cub became known as ‘Smokey Bear.’”

By the time Joslin completed his freshman year as a California college student, he had become a ranger in his own right — as a seasonal fire-control aide in the Toiyabe National Forest, based in Bridgeport, Calif., on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada. He kept the same summer job through his 1966 graduation from San Jose State College, where he earned a degree in social science with a minor in the conservation of natural resources.

Joslin wanted to continue on his dual course of academics and Forest Service work, but Uncle Sam had other plans. He followed in his officer father’s footsteps, spending 22 years in the U.S. Navy before retiring in 1988 as a commander. He settled far from the ocean, in Bend, where he resumed his original calling, writing and teaching.

He also returned to the Forest Service, working as a wilderness ranger, and later the recreation-heritage-wilderness resources team leader, for the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District in both volunteer and staff positions. He developed a special interest in the district’s heritage resource program, and invested much of his time visiting and promoting the restoration of historic ranger and guard stations.

In 2004, he rediscovered his first Forest Service home, the 1933 Bridgeport ranger station, after a phone call from Bob Boyd, who recently retired as curator of Western history for the High Desert Museum.

“It was a one-room ranger station office for a district ranger and a three-man permanent crew, and I got to love that little old building,” Joslin recalled wistfully. After that initial college summer, however, it was relocated to central Nevada, where it remained until it was abandoned in 2004. He hadn’t seen it for 42 years when Boyd asked him to determine whether it was in good enough condition to restore and relocate to the museum as a historic exhibit.

It was, and they did. On June 26, 2008 — five years ago Wednesday — the cabin rolled into Central Oregon on a low-bed truck. Now called the High Desert Ranger Station, it is staffed by retired Forest Service employees, self-named “Old Smokeys,” who explain the work of the USFS and throw in stories of ranger life.

The station will reopen for the 2013 season next Saturday and will remain open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through Labor Day. And you might find Joslin himself in the chair.

Elk Lake

Today, however, Joslin’s primary focus is the Historic Elk Lake Guard Station, 35 miles west of Bend and just off the Cascade Lakes National Scenic Byway. Now a visitor information center and interpretive site, it opened for the 2013 summer season on Thursday. It will remain open Thursdays through Mondays, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., into September.

After the first road to Elk Lake was extended from Bend in 1920, the log cabin was built in 1929 to support the growth of recreation. It was staffed by forest guards charged with protecting the natural resources, maintaining facilities and assisting visitors at campgrounds, summer home sites and the nearby Elk Lake Lodge. The lodge has operated on a special-use permit from the Forest Service since 1921.

Between 1998 and 2001, the three-room cabin and its grounds were fully restored. Since 2002, under Joslin’s direction, it has been staffed by uniformed volunteers from the national “Passport in Time” program, who represent the Forest Service to some 5,000 visitors annually. In addition to providing information, the volunteers show visitors how forest guards lived and worked before a paved Cascade Lakes Highway was completed in 1955.

“It wasn’t so long ago, but it was a very different time,” Joslin said. “Back then, if you were in the Forest Service, you knew something about everything. You were a generalist. Now, it seems, everyone is a specialist.”

Not so far from Elk Lake, and an easy drive southwest from Bend, the Fall River Guard Station (on South Century Drive, 14 miles west of Sunriver) has been refurbished as a rental cabin.

Built by the CCC in the 1930s as a fire-fighting outpost, it sits mere steps from the spring-fed headwaters of the Fall River, a favorite of local fly fishers.

From May through October, the one-story cabin rents (by reservation) for $90 a night, whether there is one guest or five. Nestled into its 600 square feet are a living room, two bedrooms and a kitchen. Propane fuels appliances, but guests must provide their own bedding, towels, and other supplies — as well as water. There’s also no plumbing.

Fish Lake

Elk Lake and Cabin Lake may be two of Joslin’s personal favorites, and they are lovely locations. But I will cast my vote for Fish Lake.

Located in Willamette National Forest, just over a mile south of U.S. Highway 20 on Highway 126, the Fish Lake Ranger Station and Remount Depot is the centerpiece of a charming, 20-acre historic area on now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t Fish Lake.

Fish Lake is a good-sized lake in spring, when Hackleman Creek’s flow is enhanced by snowmelt. By July, however, it has largely disappeared into the porous volcanic watershed, its water seeping into its foundation of lava and percolating out, into the McKenzie River drainage, at nearby Clear Lake. But the tall firs and spruces of the Cascade Range forest remain, providing welcome shade to midsummer visitors.

As early as 1868, a roadhouse at this site offered meals and lodging to travelers on the Santiam Wagon Road. The Forest Service — created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 — established a presence in 1906, built a log-cabin ranger station in 1908, and made it a summer field headquarters in 1911. When an especially heavy snow crushed in the roof of the original cabin, it was replaced in 1914 by a two-room cabin with a six-stall barn for horses, which were fed by summer hay grown in the lake bed.

Of nine historic buildings in the compound today, the oldest is a dispatcher’s cabin erected in 1921. Nearby are two 1924 structures, a commissary cabin and the “Hall House” where Forest Supervisor C.C. Hall lived with his family.

From the 1930s into the 1960s, Fish Lake was a residence for fire-fighting crews and a remount station for their pack animals. It was also a regional work camp for the CCC, which build several structures here in the 1930s. Motorized vehicles and aircraft eliminated the need for crews to transport their gear into fire lines with pack animals, but a packing operation did continue to operate from here as late as 2005.

Fish Lake retains a sense of living history. Historic Forest Service signs hang on the wall of a shed beside the former tack room and blacksmith shop. Interpretive plaques break down the geology and chronology of the site, and hand-drawn maps direct visitors to such landmarks as the 19th century grave of a pioneer woman traveler and her newborn child. In winter, the Hall House and commissary cabin are available for rental by snowmobilers and cross-country skiers.

Other cabins

As described in Joslin’s book, these are other historic Forest Service cabins in Oregon:

Allison Ranger Station is in Malheur National Forest, near Delintment Lake northwest of Hines. Its original log cabin, built in 1911, was complemented by a 1935 CCC complex. The station benefited from renovation work in 2005 and 2010.

Bly Ranger Station, in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in the southern Oregon village of Bly, is a beautiful wood-and-stone structure of classic Cascadian rustic style. Built by the CCC, it is the hub of the Bly Ranger District’s nine-building headquarters compound.

Clackamas Lake Ranger Station, in the Mount Hood National Forest south of Government Camp, is a 12-building complex nestled in a Douglas fir forest. Reconstructed in 1932, it is used as a guard station, work center and visitor center with recreational rentals.

Glide Ranger Station, in the Umpqua National Forest in Glide, east of Roseburg, has been adapted for use as an information center. Built in 1938 by the CCC, it overlooks the scenic “Colliding Rivers” confluence of the Little River with the North Fork of the Umpqua River.

Gold Beach Ranger Station continues to serve the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in the coastal community of Gold Beach. Its nine rustic, wood-and-stone buildings were built by the CCC in 1936, on a sloping marine terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Paisley Ranger Station, in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in tiny Paisley, remains the headquarters of its own ranger district more than seven decades after it was built by the CCC, between 1937 and 1939.

Paulina Lake Guard Station, in Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument, was built by the CCC in 1941-42. Doubling as a three-room summer residence for the forest guard and his family, it was the main district outpost in the Paulina Lake and East Lake areas.

Rand Ranger Station, west of Grants Pass near Galice, is the home of the Smullin Visitor Center, where Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest issues Wild and Scenic River rafting permits. Built by the CCC in the 1930s, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Star Ranger Station, southwest of Medford in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, is also on the National Register. Built along the Applegate River in 1911, the 12-by-20-foot structure has been refurnished with period-appropriate government furniture.

Tiller Ranger Station, in the Umpqua National Forest east of Canyonville, features nine historic buildings among 27 structures in a 12-acre historic district listed on the National Register. Built in the 1930s by the CCC, they all remain in use; the former district ranger’s residence has been restored and furnished as the History House museum.

‘Uncle Sam’s Cabins’

“Uncle Sam’s Cabins: A Visitor’s Guide to Historic U.S. Forest Service Ranger Stations of the West,” written by Les Joslin and published in 2012 by Wilderness Associates, is available at several Central Oregon locations — including the Des Chutes Historical Museum, The High Desert Museum, Lava Lands Visitor Center and Paulina Springs Books in Sisters and Redmond. It may be ordered from Wilderness Associates (P.O. Box 5822, Bend, OR 97708) for $20 postage paid.

— John Gottberg Anderson

Expenses

Gas: Day trips from Bend to Cabin Lake, Elk Lake and Fish Lake, 295 miles $44.84

Lunches: Groceries and take-outs $25

TOTAL $69.84

If you go

INFORMATION

Deschutes National Forest. Supervisor’s Office, 63095 Deschutes Market Road, Bend; 541-383-5300, www.fs.usda.gov

Pacific Northwest Region Forest Service. 333 S.W. First Ave., Portland; 503-808-2468. www.fs.usda.gov.

Rental-cabin reservations, 877-444-6777, www.recreation.gov

In two weeks: A Willamette Valley bicycle tour