Laurie Jenkins describes that thing on her neighbor’s lawn in Riverpoint outside of Astoria as a “giant dog house.”

This house could hold one big dog; it measures about 4-feet wide by 8-feet long and is about 41/2-feet tall at the peak of the roof. And, it is made out of spruce logs and cedar boards.

This is no giant dog house; it’s a miniature plank house, made to look like the houses the Chinook tribe would have had when Lewis and Clark wintered over at Fort Clatsop in 1805.

The model house was built by LeRoy Temple for the Festival of the Pacific, part of the “Destination: The Pacific” Lewis and Clark Bicentennial event, which will be at the Clatsop County Fairgrounds Nov. 11-13.

The house looks similar to a real plank house, but was not built to be totally accurate. It’s priority is that it can be broken up. “We came up with a plan that can be torn down and taken up stairs if we want to,” Temple said.

The reason is because of a partnership between Astoria Children’s Museum and the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. Jenkins and Temple wanted the plank house to find a permanent home at the museum, in addition to being at the festival. Temple hopes it will be at Fort Clatsop in the summer and the museum in the winter.

Once a plan was drawn up, Temple “went out into the woods and peeled logs,” with the help of his wife, Barbara Temple. “They were real juicy,” he said. The cedar planking was donated by Lumbermen’s in Seaside, and construction went ahead.

Right now, the house is being aged, explaining its presence on the Temples’ lawn, and the group plans to “smoke” it by building a fire inside of it, to give it the right atmosphere. They want kids to “get an authentic feel of what it feels like on the inside,” Temple said.

The biggest challenge building the house was crooked poles, said Temple. Most carpentry works with square angles, he said, but on the poles, “nothing is square!”

Jenkins is in charge of planning the Kids Corps discovery area with all kinds of educational exhibits for the festival. She is a mother, so “selfishly I am only focusing on kids’ stuff,” she said. Her family connection to the activities is strong; her husband, Chip Jenkins, is superintendent of the National Historical Park.

In addition to the plank house, there will be a Fort Clatsop Ranger Station that is at the Astoria’s Children Museum and a miniature salt works operation. The salt works will be sandwiched between the plank house and the ranger station, “so kids can just do their thing,” said Laurie Jenkins.

The ranger station will have dress-up ranger uniforms and guidebooks for kids. Other planned costumes include buckskins, military uniforms and, hopefully, some Chinook capes and shirts.

“It’s all this stuff for grownups … at a kid level,” she said. The festival will be a place “where parents and kids can roll up their sleeves and make a bentwood box. Granted, it’ll only be cardboard, but they get that experience.”