Longreads

On building a cabin in Trevelín, Argentina:

"I had spent ten years dreaming, three years shopping for land, and now almost two years arranging the construction, which I planned to spend 30 days supervising. Months before the planned January 2007 start, I flew down for ten days to line up a sawmill, open accounts at hardware stores, and coordinate a tight schedule of just-in-time deliveries. Julito vowed to have the site prepped and the foundation built before I returned with Team Sawyer in January, the height of Patagonian summer. We would go straight to the barn-raising scene in Witness where Harrison Ford is clambering all over the roof beams.

"Cut to reality. In January, Beth and I found the site green and lovely—and completely undisturbed. Not a single board, beam, nail, tile, or bolt had arrived, not a clod of dirt had been moved, and Julito and his crew were nowhere to be found—and wouldn't show up until a week later. Team Sawyer drifted in over the next few days. At sunset every night, we marveled at Trevelín's view of the Andes and toasted the coming endeavor. Mornings, we stood around the grassy clearing scuffing our heels. Right away an argument broke out over where to put the hot tub."

It was dark when Jesper Olsen fell. Dark and cold. In wintertime in northern Greenland there's not so much as a single ray of sunlight for more than three months. The average temperature is 25°…