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This past weekend I stayed at my friend's new lake place located on the shore of Leech Lake near Walker, MN. What makes this cabin a bit unique and all-together endearing to my sensibilities is its size - or, to put it more precisely, its lack of size.

There is a story that led Paul and his wife, Patty, to build such a simple cabin on their property, but I'm afraid I might not know enough of the details to tell it as accurately as I might hope, and their story really can be summed up more succinctly as a result of my admitted ignorance.

What I do know and can safely write about is the fact that, originally, there was a two-year plan to build a fairly large timber-frame lake home on the property. The arduous process of entertaining bids from general contractors, meetings with custom builders and studying blueprints, was replaced by the notion - perhaps it was an epiphany of sorts - that a cabin would indeed be built, but things would be accomplished on a far smaller and less complicated scale.

A number of things about this cabin and the property that surrounds it immediately appealed to me. When looking at this parcel of land from the lake or road, there is little evidence that would lead you to believe the land is inhabited at all. The cabin itself is there, of course, but the Norway, white and jack pines remain undisturbed and stand shoulder to shoulder like towering sentries guarding a well kept secret. The trees almost seemed to scoot over just enough to accommodate the structure. And although the cabin isn't far from the shoreline, you'd almost have to know the cabin was there to see it from the water. Even the two-track driveway leading from the road to the cabin is simple and inconspicuous by design. It's just wide enough to allow a vehicle to pass, and there are a few tricky spots where a scant few inches separate side mirrors from trees.

More importantly to me than the simple structure itself was the way it made me feel while I was staying there. Because the cabin is uncomplicated and functional, it makes you immediately aware of the fact that there really are but a few essentials in life that we need to be fulfilled and content. Close family and friends, good books, and a keen awareness of spirituality and nature will always go a long way to keep us from wanting those material things in life that are frivolous and non-essential.

After the first shafts of morning light woke me on Sunday, I put a match to the propane heater, gas lamp and single-burner stove. As the percolator began to bubble and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air inside the cabin, I sat at the kitchen table to riff through a Minnesota field guide to trees. After the coffee darkened considerably in the pot, I filled a cup and made my way to the lake. The inch or so of ice in the middle of Agency Narrows was beginning to move and break under a slight breeze, making popping and cracking sounds.

I think it was on Sunday morning that it occurred to me that Paul and Patty's small cabin in the woods, with the shoreline a short distance from the front door and towering pines all around, felt altogether familiar. It felt as if I'd read about such a place at one time or another in a book. I quickly realized the story, of course, is Walden, Or, Life in the Woods, written in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau. This book chronicled Thoreau's experiences in building a small home on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, and the two years he spent there alone.

The similarities were really quite striking. Thoreau wrote of visitors to his simple, one room cabin on the shore of Walden Pond: "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. My "best" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house."

Walden is a book that I've had for a number of years and it has accompanied me on many fishing, hunting and camping trips. After finding it on Sunday night when I arrived home to Taylors Falls, I sat in the living room and began to thumb through the well-worn pages and revisit the numerous passages that bring comfort to me in much the same way as that little cabin along the shore of Leech Lake.

Paul commented on more than one occasion that there wasn't a single project that he and his family completed that wasn't far more difficult and time consuming than originally planned. Woodcutting, stonework and simple construction projects all commanded quite a bit of their sweat equity. I found another parallel in Thoreau's Walden when I read the following: "I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to endure a long time."

In the middle of the economic turmoil our nation and world is currently facing, I found Thoreau's words and simple philosophy of life in the woods to be relevant and inspiring. Shouldn't we all re-evaluate exactly what is essential in our lives? If more people read and understood Thoreau's words and lived a more simple and frugal life, wouldn't our nation's economy be in far better shape at this time? Wouldn't we be happier? I would answer yes to those questions.

One of my favorite passages in Walden reads, "Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation."

A small cabin near a lake is a fine place to think and observe nature and enjoy the company of close family and friends. Paul and Patty's new place has the same affect on the soul as Thoreau's words and the little cabin he built on the shore of Walden Pond.

Dan Brown's weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankie's Bait and Marine, in Chisago City, and St. Croix Outdoors, in St. Croix Falls, Wis.

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