Log Cabin House

Log construction has been especially popular in Scandinavia, where straight tall tree trunks (pine and spruce) are readily available. With suitable tools, a log cabin can be erected from scratch in days by a family. As no chemical reaction is involved, such as hardening of mortar, a log cabin can be erected in any weather or season. Many older towns in Northern Scandinavia have been built exclusively out of log houses, which have been decorated by board paneling and wood cuttings. Today construction of modern log cabins as leisure homes is a fully developed industry in Finland and Sweden.
European settlers in the United States
In the present-day United States, settlers may have first constructed log cabins in 1638. Historians believe that the first log cabins built in North America were in the Swedish colony of Nya Sverige (New Sweden) in the Delaware River and Brandywine River valleys. Many of its colonists were actually Forest Finns, because Finland was controlled by Sweden at that time. The Swedish colony only lasted a couple of decades before it was absorbed by the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which was soon absorbed by the English. Most of the descendants of the Swedish-Finnish colony are believed to have stayed in North America.