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The Opening

It is an annual ritual that takes place once the snow has receded — not disappeared completely, but at least retreated to the protected shade of the trees. Once the thick lake ice has magically transformed itself, first on a mild spring night into an infinite number of tiny ice capsules before disappearing completely the following afternoon, and once that first sunny weekend is promised in April or May … it is time. It is an event as much anticipated by the family as Christmas morning, and is often full of as many surprises. It is the opening of the cottage.

The children are loaded into the SUV, along with the dog and enough provisions to last a year. The boat and trailer, fresh out of winter hibernation, are hooked behind. Off you go, down the highway and along the twisting, winding road to the lake. The children get carsick, the dog makes smells (or at least nobly accepts the blame), Mom snoozes, and Dad yells at the kids and chastises the pooch. Not long into the trip the first “How much farther?” and “Are we there yet?” are uttered from the back seats.

The ruckus gets louder, the dog sleeps and drools, the wife sleeps and only occasionally drools, and the dad hoarsely begs the children to quiet down. You are almost there, and the children argue over who has seen the lake first, the dog wakes up and pants out the window, the wife’s eyes remain closed, and Dad’s mouth lifts into a slight smile — his voice is gone. Then you arrive, in our case at the landing, which looks out at the lake and our island cottage. The dog runs in circles, the children run on the dock, and the wife wakes up and states, “That didn’t take very long.”

Back at the cottage — life is good.

The rain starts, the wind picks up, and the water gets choppy. With everything loaded you head across the lake wondering what surprises you will find at the cabin this year.

Thankfully, the old birch, the one that you meant to cut down in the fall, has fallen on its own but only slightly clipped the porch roof — the roof you wanted to replace this summer anyway. Worse, the ancient cedar that has stood regally for so long at the back of the privy has snapped and twisted, and is held up ever so gently in the limbs of a spindly pine, inches above the outhouse. You have to use this building, but are afraid to do so until the cedar is cleaned up, lest the branches of the pine give out while you are seated and you become always remembered on the lake as the fellow who died in this peculiar and awful fashion.

As if in celebration of your impending doom, the squirrels have decorated the building with the toilet paper you forgot to put away at closing. The mice have held a party in the cabin. Those who ice fish off your point every winter have, for whatever reason, forgotten to remove their bottles and trash. The Javex bottle left in the kitchen has frozen and exploded, and bleached the linoleum when it thawed in spring — you planned to replace the floor this summer anyway. A sack of potatoes was left in the shoe trunk over winter, which now smells only slightly more pleasant than your old runners.

The pump won’t pump, the propane fridge won’t light, and you forgot the liquor.

But you are back at the cottage. Life is good.

Opening Checklist

Weeks before that first trip to the cottage, I pull out the “Opening of the Cottage Checklist” from the safety of my underwear drawer in my bedroom armoire. The checklist is a yellowing, coffee-stained, crinkled piece of lined paper, with fading blue ink scrawled in my dad’s handwriting. It is a list culled from years of experience, handed down from one generation to the next and updated and perfected yearly. Little notations are penned in the margins. We use it as a guideline and get ourselves more organized than we will be for any other event throughout the entire year.

My list is actually meant to remind me of what I need at the cottage. It contains items like: “Don’t forget the chainsaw, sharpen it, fill the propane bottles, clean the barbecue, and bring tools, paint, brushes, and caulking for the windows. Don’t forget the cabin key! Nor should you forget the starter key or the plug for the boat.”

The list is also a reminder of the process I must follow after arriving. “Do a walk-around of the island and cottage, to both remind you how lucky you are and to see if anything is amiss. Turn on the propane, clean and start the fridge, assemble and prime the pump, take off the metal window screens, start barbecue, bring Muskoka chairs to dock, and then sit down and smile at wife and share a nice beverage.”

My wife sees the “Opening of the Cottage Checklist” in an entirely different light. For her it is a shopping list. She takes the list as my blessing for her to go to the store to buy new things: romantic candles, tea towels, elegant yet rustic photo frames, bedding, pillows, lanterns, comforters with a bear motif, scented candles, wine glasses, candle holders, and a new opening-up-the-cabin outfit for herself. Then she looks around the garage, where we are making things ready, and decides that cardboard boxes are not really nice enough to carry these things. For this regal purpose, she knows we need those fancy plastic storage bins, those which are dreaded by husbands everywhere.

Weeks before our trip, my darling wife has everything we need stored in its place, labelled and stacked neatly ready for me to load. One plastic bin is full of linens, towels, and a couple bottles of red wine. Another contains food, and a third bin holds flashlights, candles, matches, bug spray, mousetraps, batteries, and a bottle of her favourite wine. A clear plastic bin is stacked full of toilet paper. A tall one, with newfangled locking lid latches that pop open whenever you pick it up, is crammed with every cleaning supply imaginable, and a bottle of her favourite wine.

Then there is a low, rectangular plastic bin with FIRST-AID SUPPLIES written in black marker on the top, and Band-Aids, Advil, wine, and an old Scrabble game stowed within. The Scrabble game is the same one she has been trying to beat me on for over a decade, without success. The wine is for the “without success” part.

The Advil? I believe it’s for me. Most of the containers have those lids that snap shut and are purportedly childproof. When you want inside them, you are forced to use a claw hammer or pry bar to work them loose. Yet when you are transporting them across the lake in the front of your boat, the top invariably careens off and saucers through the air like a Frisbee or an ancient ninja weapon, either hitting me square on the forehead or careening higher still and clipping the tail feathers of a mallard in flight.

We won’t need to eat the downed duck, however. With the lid off the bin, I’m able to see that my wife has gathered enough culinary provisions to feed an army, or to at least allow her to survive until rescued, should the lid of a container come flying off and behead me like Oddjob’s bowler hat in a James Bond movie.

Start the Day

It has become known as the Cottage Breakfast. Nothing fancy, mind you, nothing gourmet. Certainly not something that you would have to suffer through, watching how to prepare it on the Food Network. Our traditional morning breakfast at the cabin is just bacon, cooked to perfection, and set gently on an English muffin, toasted golden-brown. That is it. Sometimes you can add an egg for variety. Simple, but delicious, just a traditional slice of cottage life.

It is a wonderful way to start a new day, sitting down on the dock in the early morning, watching the goings-on in the little bay out front of the cabin, while enjoying a coffee and eating this simple breakfast. Like many meals cooked at the cottage, or out on a camping trip, it tastes fantastic. Cook it at home and it just isn’t the same.

My wife and I are opening up the cabin this week, and on this chilly spring morning, while I boil up some cowboy coffee and sneak in a tot of Irish cream, my wife puts the finishing touches on our first Cottage Breakfast of the year.

“It just isn’t the same as when Grandpa makes it,” she complains. It tastes pretty darn good to me this morning, but I know what she means. The traditional breakfast is really something that my dad started, and he is very particular about how he makes it. Grandpa does the breakfast with fastidious care. First he gets the fire going in the wood-burning cookstove, coaxing it to the proper temperature. He contends that the propane stove just won’t do. Each portion is done individually. He fries up the two pieces of bacon in the cast iron frying pan and sets the English muffin halves under the broiler.

There are two minor problems associated with the Cottage Breakfast. One, cooked individually and with such attention to detail, the breakfast hour can stretch long into the late morning. His meticulous method can be a little problematic when everyone is up at the cottage at the same time, six to eight adults and seven to nine kids.

Just as Grandpa finishes feeding the early risers, the tantalizing aroma from the grill wafts into the interior of the big wall tent where the kids are sleeping, waking them in a most pleasant manner. It certainly seems to work much better than the morning alarm clock’s shrill buzz that is meant to beckon them to school. One by one they will wander down to the dock and place their order. Each time that Grandpa thinks his morning task is complete, along comes another mouth to feed. Even though he complains, I think he relishes his reputation as breakfast chef extraordinaire.

The second problem? Grandpa has a certain misguided sense of chivalry. What should be first-come first-served turns into ladies first. How old-fashioned!

I try to get up early and out to the dock to be first in line. Otherwise the smoky smell of bacon frying in the skillet can drive one crazy. I have learned to bring my wife coffee in bed, hand over her book, tell her that it is still a little chilly out on the dock. “Nobody is up yet,” I’ll say. “Call me when you want another coffee. I’ll even bring you breakfast when Grandpa gets up.”

“You’re not fooling anybody,” she responds. “I can smell the bacon from here.”

Just as the master chef is wandering down the stony path to the dock with my hot breakfast in his hand, my darling wife comes out of the boathouse bunkie, stretching and yawning.

“Oh, good morning! You’re just in time, a breakfast for you,” offers my charming dad. “And I’m sure your husband would love to get you a coffee,” he will add.

I stomp up to the cabin. “Is that you growling, or just your stomach,” teases my sensitive spouse.

It is marvellous how much we enjoy these simple pleasures in our cottage life, and interesting how things become cottage traditions. We may greet the morning with pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausages, or cereal and toast, but when that Cottage Breakfast is handed out, all of us who have spent time at our paradise experience a wonderful sense of place.

In search of those elusive trout.

Of Mice and Men

For us it’s an annual battle, a constant war waged over ownership of the cottage. I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s role in the movie Caddyshack, as a beleaguered greenskeeper trying to outwit the course-sabotaging gophers. Our nemeses are the mice that look to our cabin for shelter, comfort, and food, especially through the harsh winter months.

Keeping the cabin free from invasion is a difficult task. Whether the cottage is a posh retreat or a simple lakeside shanty, the mice do not play favourites. No matter how hard we work to “mouse-proof” the place, it is hard to stop an animal that can slip through an entrance as small as a nickel.

I was just a kid — perhaps thirteen. A mouse had been sneaking into our food cupboards, soiling the countertops, rustling the plastic bags of cereal, and waking us in the night. To catch him, I built a simple trap, a light linen cloth over a smooth-sided bucket and a cracker slathered with peanut butter for bait. Mouse, tea towel, and cracker fell into the bucket — where I found the rodent and the cloth in the morning.

“Now what?” asked my dad.

“I’ll let him go outside,” I said.

“He’ll get back in.”

“I’ll take him to the other side of the island.”

“He has discovered easy food. He will find his way back.”

“Do I have to drown him?”

Hey, I was a sensitive kid. I paddled the one-mile stretch of water to the mainland in my canoe, a white garbage bucket in the bow. I set the mouse free. Perhaps a hawk or garter snake found him, but I felt quite pleased with myself. My dad teased me, not being able to face the facts of nature. “Outside, they are left alone,” he would say. “But once our space has been invaded, they have to go.”

It is with great trepidation that we head to the cabin each spring, to open the cottage for another season. What mouse treats will be left behind? What wanton acts of vandalism or destruction? What careless mistakes did we make when closing the cottage last fall?

One year a box of spaghetti had been left behind, and the mice had broken each individual noodle into tidy one-inch pieces. These they stored in various caches throughout the cabin, including inside the oven mitts that hung on the side of the stove. Another year it was a bar of soap, left by the sink, that was chewed and shaved into a thousand slivers, leaving us with the freshest smelling rodents on the lake.

This year, Grandma is annoyed that someone has stolen the laces out of her old, comfortable camp shoes — though nobody will admit to needing a piece of string. We find the thieves when we separate the box spring and mattress in the back bedroom. The laces are there, still in one piece, wound gently around the lip of a downy mouse nest, like garland around a Christmas wreath. Mouse mom and mouse babies stare up in innocence. The children find them cute — our youngest asks to keep one, wanting to name him Stuart Little. The war is at a truce.

With the grandchildren and Grandma keeping a stern watch, and I, for my part, grinning a silly smile that hinges on a thirty-some-year-old cottage memory, off goes Grandpa in the boat to shore, with a family of mice gently stowed with their nest in a bucket at the bow.

Hello, World!

My dad would wander out on the front porch of the cottage and shout out, “Hello, world!” at the top of his lungs. The bellow would break the silence of a summer’s evening and echo across the still lake waters. I am not sure if anyone across on shore ever heard him, but they certainly didn’t bother to holler back with, “Hello, Mr. Ross.” Maybe they just heard it and muttered amongst themselves, “There’s that lunatic again.”

We would have just finished up our dinner when he’d get up and step outside to let go with his familiar salutation. Or we might be playing a family board game on the big pine harvest table in the evening when he would head out to the loo, pausing on the porch to shout.

Sometimes we kids would have settled in for the night in the boathouse bunkie. We would be telling ghost stories or shining our flashlights around on the ceiling like spotlights. We would be giggling and talking and, sometimes, we would be getting yelled at to “be quiet and get to sleep and quit wasting the batteries in the flashlights!” — much the same things we chastise our kids for now. When we had settled down and were drifting off to a sweet sleep, lulled by the sounds of waves lapping on shore, the wind in the trees, or the distant call of a loon, comforted even by the sounds of adult voices and laughter coming from the cottage — suddenly the front door of the cabin would swing open and we would hear the familiar refrain, “Hello, world!”

When we were young we would giggle at his antics. What a silly thing for a dad to be doing. In our teenage years we would roll our eyes and think, “How geeky!” As we grew older and visited the cottage with our friends, we would wince every time he stepped outside, and then let out a sigh of relief if nothing happened. Then, there it was, the shout. He seemed curiously incapable of being embarrassed, which was all right because I felt enough for both of us. Red-faced, I would cast an eye at my comrades for their reactions.

In retrospect, though I might have thought his antics embarrassed me in front of my good friends, I don’t think his inane shouting from the cottage’s front porch elicited any such response from them. Perhaps their own fathers had similar unusual traits. Perhaps they had become hardened to such behaviour over time.

When I started visiting the cottage with my own family, Grandpa would still wander out to the front porch and shout his greeting. The kids would giggle; what a funny thing for a grandpa to be doing. I was all right with it by then, too. In fact, his shouted greeting had become a part of the place, a part of what I felt at home and comfortable with and what made the cottage such a familiar and fun place to visit.

Feel as if you can fly.

We bought the cottage from my folks, and a funny thing happened. I would step outside in the evening, and I’d have this overpowering desire to shout to the world. At first I’d send out the familiar phrase in a hoarse whisper. Sometimes I’d yell it a little louder, much to my children’s chagrin and my wife’s displeasure. She’d give me that look: “See, you’re turning into your dad, you’re picking up all his silly habits. Do you want me to start acting like my mom?” Well, no, but that’s another whole column.

We opened up the cottage on a beautiful weekend in April this year. We had made our way through the opening checklist, completed our chores, and then sat down for a nice steak dinner. We cleaned up afterwards, together, and then I stepped out on the porch, stretched, and couldn’t resist the urge … “Hello, world!” I shouted.

My wife stepped out behind me, but rather than giving me heck, she gave me a little hug and said, “Yes, it’s great to be back here.”

Looking back, I realize that my dad’s greeting, offered out to the lake, was simply a statement to anyone who was listening and to nobody in particular. My dad was saying, “I’m happy to be here!” Or perhaps, “I love this place!” After all, he never did it anywhere else. It was something only for the cottage. “Hello, world!”

The Rescue

First of all, before I begin this little story, I want to let it be known that I do not suffer from arachnophobia. I might prefer a snake slithering across my path, a leech stuck to my midsection, or even tripping over a hornets’ nest to having a big, hairy, creepy-crawling spider spinning me into a death cocoon, but, in general, spiders are all right.

The Hobbses are good friends of ours. Even though they live over a mile away, they are our cottage neighbours. They have the small island called Blueberry to the northeast. If we ever need a hand, or advice, Harvey Hobbs is always willing.

This April the lake ice took away the dock on Blueberry Island, making it extremely difficult for the Hobbses to land on their steep rock shoreline. The dock had simply disappeared, another victim of the destructive power of spring breakup. Here, then, was an opportunity for us to pay back the Hobbses for their unerring helpfulness. We set out on a morning mission in our boat to find the missing dock and return it to its rightful place. After some searching, we spied an intact, sixteen-foot section of the dock on an uninhabited stretch of the north shore.

The dock was wedged high on the boulder-strewn beach. My wife and I struggled to get it afloat, using twelve-foot rails as pry bars. My father, skippering the boat, attached a line to the stringers and pulled. We gradually worked the heavy thing loose and got it floating. My wife jumped into the bow of the runabout to help guide us through the many shoals. I stayed on the dock-turned-raft.

Off we went, towing the dock across the calm lake with me balancing on the deck boards. If I moved towards the bow, the front of the dock dipped below the water. If I moved to the port or starboard, I found I could help manoeuvre the clumsy barge to the left or right. Only the back middle third of the dock stayed high and dry.

Imagine my consternation when, as I stood regally on the raft with the wind blowing through my hair, I looked down and saw an enormous spider standing beside me. He looked like my pet dog sitting primly there at my feet. If I was captain of this vessel, he was my first mate. He was huge and ugly. I wouldn’t say he was as big as my hand (that would be an exaggeration) but he wasn’t much smaller. I was naturally startled, which is why I let out a little screech, a piercing whelp that thankfully went unheard over the buzz of the boat motor. I quickly regained my composure and almost decided to squish him, sending his body to a watery grave.

I admired his bravery, however. I admired his survival instincts. He had joined me on this little adventure, so who was I to repay his trust by stamping down on him with my water shoes. Besides, I felt like Pi on a raft alone with his Bengal tiger. Oh, you may laugh, me comparing this little insect to a ferocious killer cat, but spiders can be extremely dangerous, too.

So the journey continued for this spider and me, two castaways separated from certain death by a few dry boards. I kept a watchful eye on him — and sensed that he did the same with me. When I looked nervously down, he craned his little head and peered skyward. I smiled, and he returned the grin. The trip seemed to last for most of the day, but in reality took about an hour. Finally we circled around Blueberry Island and motored into the little nook to return the dock to its old resting spot.

The boat crew released the tow rope and threw me a paddle so I could steer our dock into position. As I leaned over to paddle, the dock dipped under the lake water. The spider headed for high ground, which just happened to be up my leg. I swatted him.

Now, before you get upset at my reaction, thinking that I had killed my faithful travelling companion, when I say “swatted him” I simply mean I brushed him off my leg. True, my action did send him catapulting into the lake, causing him to thrash about in a dance of survival, but it was a predicament that was easily rectified with a gently placed paddle blade. The arachnid climbed aboard, and I placed him gently on shore. Without a word of thanks, he scurried off.

I hope that Harvey is happy to have his dock back, and that he does not mind that I have added to the spider population of his island. I’m sure he will happily bound off his dock, up onto the island, and walk face first into a sticky spiderweb. Perhaps it was a pregnant female.

Flying Piranha

My wife is from Vancouver. There are no blackflies in Vancouver — none in the whole of British Columbia, really. There are plenty of mosquitoes. There are little gnats we call no-see-ums that get under the brim of your hat and bite at your forehead. There are wasps and hornets and bees, and ticks that drop off the spring willow and burrow into your neck. Big horseflies dart around your head, avoiding your windmilling arms, driving you slowly crazy.

There are biting red ants that crawl up your socks and nip at your ankles when you unwittingly sit on a rotten log or lie out in the grass on a warm summer’s day using their anthill as a pillow. There are many minor nuisances in our western province, but none that can measure up to the ferocity of the blackfly. Blackflies prefer the rocks, lakes, bush, and swift-flowing streams of Muskoka. They are a little bit like cottagers that way.

While I have fond memories of these miniature flying piranha from my youth, when we move back to cottage country in the summer of 2005, my wife has yet to be introduced.

“There is something wrong with Jenna,” cries my wife. “She’s bleeding from the back of her head.” She holds our six-year-old daughter close to comfort her, but her panic and the mention of blood serves only to agitate the youngster, sending her into tears.

I wander over to have a look. Little trickles of blood stream down from behind each ear.

“Did you hit your head?” my wife is asking.

“Blackflies,” I pronounce. Of course, I am always quite pleased to know something about something. Especially to know some little tidbit that my wife does not. It happens so rarely.

“Blackflies did that?” she asks incredulously — and then she takes a swat at a deer fly that has landed on our daughter’s back. “Well, there is one blackfly that won’t be bothering you again,” she states haughtily, as the crumpled fly falls dead to the grass.

“No, no,” say I — and I point to a tiny little flying speck that buzzes Jenna’s hair.

My wife squints at the minuscule gnat and then stares at me as if I am quite mad. The little black insects cloud around my head as well, landing on the hairline at the back of my neck. I stupidly let one take a huge chunk out of my hide, just to prove my point. She watches the blood flow, and then starts to laugh. Cheered by the sudden gaiety, my young daughter also giggles at my misfortune, and the two ladies trot happily into the cottage to clean up the bloody smears, leaving me to wave my hands frantically at a swarming, invisible enemy.

While blackflies love me, they do not seem to care for my wife. When we work around the cabin, she does so in shorts and T-shirt, while I cover up, flail my arms about inanely, and constantly twitch and shake like a dog. Why blackflies prefer some people to others, I do not know. Perhaps it is because, though she is of the fair sex, I have the fairer skin. I have told her that her blood must be sour — to which she retorts that most flying insects do seem to swarm over horse droppings in the field.

The Game of Tape and Ladders

Okay, here’s the deal: I’m swinging on the cabin’s main log beam, looking a lot like Cheetah, the chimpanzee. Perhaps I am dating myself here. Cheetah was Tarzan’s pet monkey in those 1930s black and white Tarzan movies, the chimp who was so talented at swinging on branches and from tree to tree. Maybe my audience for this column is a little younger; I should have compared myself to Rafiki, the famous blue-faced baboon of Lion King fame — or perhaps George of the Jungle.

Anyway, I’m wasting time here, and time is something I don’t feel I have a lot of in my current predicament — so back to my story …

I’m swinging on the big log purloin that runs the length of our cottage. I was cleaning the large upper front window when the ladder underneath me essentially collapsed.

Swinging around, holding on for dear life, and looking down at the floor far beneath, I sense that my wife is standing there laughing at me. She seems to be asking, “What do you think you are doing?” Then, perhaps showing a tiny bit of compassion, she seems to be asking if I’m all right. It’s like it is not unusual for her to hear a crash, come into the cabin, and see her husband swinging on the ceiling like a primate.

It seems like hours, but is more likely just a few seconds that I hang there speechless — speechless until I realize she is trying to coax me down with a banana. “Please hurry out to the shed and grab the old wooden ladder,” I plead.

“That old thing?” she asks. “That’s dangerous.”

“Dear, my arm is getting tired here.”

She rescues me with the aged, warped wooden ladder, the one with the split rail and missing rungs, the ladder that she has been asking me to throw out or burn for years. Instead, I kept it as a backup (and I’m sure glad I did) for the more modern aluminum stepladder, the one that was held together with duct tape, the one that my father-in-law had rescued from the dump and bequeathed to me at the time of my marriage. Perhaps he hoped we would elope. Or perhaps he hoped the ladder would collapse into a mangle of metal with me on it, as it did just now.

Safe on the ground, and feeling lucky, I expect a few tears and a hug of gratitude from my darling spouse, who came so close to losing me. Instead, I find myself being chastised. “We’re getting a new ladder. I’ve been telling you to throw those ladders out for years!” This anger comes from being truly afraid, I try telling myself, until, “It could have been me on that ladder, did you ever think of that?”

It is funny. Our cottage often becomes the retirement home for all of our old tools and furniture, stuff that has long worn out its welcome at home. When my wife says, “We have to get rid of that before someone gets hurt,” I slip it into my pickup and sneak it up to the cottage. I might find the available funds to buy some nice steaks and a good bottle of wine for the cottage barbecue dinner, I might even splurge on that bottle of rare single malt to enjoy on the dock at day’s end, but a few bucks for a new ladder? I’ve got one that works — I even have a backup.

As she continues chastising, my wife notices that my concentration is waning. Worse than that, she always seems to know what I’m thinking. My gaze has shifted to the scrap of metal that was once a sturdy ladder — thirty-some years earlier, perhaps. I’m thinking, “With a few wooden splints and a lot of duct tape, we just might get a few more years out of” … whap. I survived the fall, only to be concussed by a ripe banana.

Forever Young

It is astonishing the sharp, distinct, and compelling memories that summer cottages evoke.

I had been living out west for more than twenty years when my parents decided it was time to sell our family island cottage. I knew, then, it was time to come home. We were a family of wanderers, never living in one town too long, always off in search of a new adventure. As we moved from place to place, the cottage remained a constant and was where I felt most rooted. I didn’t want to lose it. So I bought the property, loaded up my life, and drove across the country.

Now, when I see my own children climbing up swim rock in their bathing suits, I experience a strong sense of déjà vu. I watch them and remember my young cottage days, when our pleasant summer routine had us spending our days swimming, playing board games, loafing, running in the trees, water-skiing, building bonfires, and, as we got older, flirting with young ladies.

When the low black rain clouds rolled in across the lake and the thunder and lightning whipped the water into a frenzy, we lit the oil lamps and spent our afternoons and evenings in the cabin or out on the covered porch, reading, conversing, or playing games. There was a certain simplicity to our life there: we pulled out old board games, a deck of cards, or warped jigsaw puzzles.

The cottage is a place of youth and energy.

We ran through the island’s dark spruce and balsam forest, feeling that we had discovered a place of mystery and wonder. In this quiet wood we sensed the primeval and thought that no one had stood here before. We found our own hideouts and secret bases, hollows under thick boughs, mini caves hidden under granite ledges.

As the summer progressed, our tans darkened and our messy, tangled hair was streaked blond from the sun. We were like shipwrecked children with our own customs and rituals. Our parents were mere ghosts. We had no watches, and there was no clock on the cabin wall. When we were hungry, we gathered on swim rock for lunch and then returned to the water or the dark forest.

I remember our driftwood fires on the point, where we sang and laughed, told ghost stories, and exchanged intimacies — so now, whenever I see bonfire embers glowing, I am brought back to those days. At the end of the night, when silence had fallen over us, we trudged back to the cabin, feeling our way past the roots and rocks of the dirt trail.

Now I watch my children with their siblings, cousins, and friends, running through the same forest that I ran through as a child. They find the same hideouts and forts. Their imaginations lead them into similar games. They become pirates, knights on a quest, warlords, or frontiersmen. They paddle to nearby Sawdust Island, claiming it as their own, guarding it against all trespassers. They pack a picnic lunch, and we give them a cowbell to clang in case of trouble.

These little things are touchstones for cottage memories and proof that a summer home is not a place like anywhere else. It is a place of youth and energy — where we spent many happy, wonderful summers. The cottage that we visit now is not necessarily the geographical one of the present, but the one of my youth, and everywhere I look, the ghost of my old self is present.

The Breakdown and the Brat

Why is it that your boat never breaks down tied up to your own dock, but always waits until you are in the middle of the lake?

My sister’s family had arrived and I ran down to the dock, jumped in the boat, and started the engine. I spun the boat around with a flourish, and then roared across the one-kilometre stretch of water towards the shore to ferry them and their gear across to the cottage. Halfway there, the motor made a loud clunk and stopped. This did not sound good.

Handyman that I am, I checked the battery connections, though I knew that this problem was worse than that. I lifted the motor and inspected the prop. I took off the cover and made a theatrical display of checking over the motor, even though I did not have a clue what I was doing. The boat drifted in the wind, destined for the far east arm of the lake. I pulled out the paddle and tried to set a course back to our island.

I imagined my sister and her husband on shore, hands on their hips, saying, “Now, what’s he doing?”

I dipped the paddle and pulled hard, trying to fight against wind and wave. Why are they never with you when you are in such a predicament? I did not hope for rescue by some observant cottager on the mainland; I only wished not to be seen. I saw my wife paddling in my direction with the kayak.

“What are you doing?” said she.

“Oh, just paddling my motorboat.”

She hooked a tow rope from kayak to runabout, and then she paddled hard towards our cottage. I yelled directions to her. “Harder! More to the left. No, right. Put your back into it!”

Then I saw a boat approaching. Feeling bad to be caught with my wife working so hard, I untied her tow rope and set her free; she took several easy strokes away and then turned in surprise.

“Nothing you can do here, honey,” I shouted loudly. “You go on back to your lounger on the dock and I’ll be there momentarily. Whoa, what’s this? Oh, a boat to the rescue.” I saw that the rental boat was being driven by my brother-in-law, and realized that my dramatic presentation had been wasted. He was smiling — hero to the rescue. He pulled me to shore and headed back for his crew.

After we had gone over the motor and realized that there was nothing that we, in our wisdom, were capable of fixing, I ran the rental craft back to the resort to make arrangements to keep it for a few days. The owner had just pulled up in his ATV with a trailer full of kindling. His six-year-old grandson was loading a few sticks of the wood onto a remote control Hummer and steering it into their cabin to the woodbox. Sometimes the miniature vehicle lost control navigating over the door jamb and spilled its load on the welcome mat. The boy pretended to be the road crew, reloading the scattered wood.

Why does your boat always wait until you’re in the middle of the lake to break down?

“That’s a neat way to do that,” I said.

“Hi, dummy,” said the boy.

“Pardon?”

“Wasn’t it you stuck out on the lake?”

Before I could answer, the grandpa was there, reprimanding the youngster for his cheek with a client. I envisioned him standing with the boy earlier and saying, “Look at that dummy stuck with his boat out in the middle of the lake.” I settled up for the boat and headed back to the dock in a huff. Flustered, I pulled and pulled on the cord, and flooded the little outboard.

“You don’t even know how to drive a boat!” the precocious six-year-old shouted.

“Shush,” said his grandpa.

What’s Eating You?

Standing on the sidelines of the local soccer field last night watching my daughter’s game, I came to the realization that, here in cottage country, we enjoy a real home field advantage. We are used to the cloud of blackflies and mosquitoes that harass us; the other team is not. Our girls stand firm, used to the fog of pesky insects and prepared beforehand with a slathering of bug spray. The other team is driven to distraction. My problem is I don’t like covering myself in chemicals, but I don’t relish being eaten alive either.

A family friend frequently visits us in Muskoka from the Falkland Islands. I am sure not many Falklanders visit cottage country on a frequent basis, but he is partial to our beautiful landscape. In the Falklands there are no bugs: no blackflies, mosquitoes, wasps, or hornets. I think it has something to do with the South Atlantic winds, which blow constant and fierce, sending any pesky flying intruders catapulting westward to the South American continent.

Danny does not like snow and cold, so I invite him here in June with the promise of sparkling clear lakes, the smell of wildflowers, and warm, sunny days. I do not mention that the sweet gifts of nature in spring have a decidedly nasty side. First comes the cloud of blackflies, buzzing around our heads and nibbling behind our ears, arriving in mid-May and hanging out until the children are released from school in late June. As the blackfly attacks wane, the mosquitoes are out in full force, having arrived in the rains of late May, overstaying their welcome into July.

It is the time of year when these biting insects try to chase us indoors, reminding us that we may not actually be at the pinnacle of the food chain, but rather at the top of the menu. They buzz our decks and gardens, pester us at the barbecue, and ruin our golf games (or at least are blamed). They find us at the lake, accompany us over the portage, and act as companions on our hikes. For as long as people have sought adventure beyond the city, the blackflies and mosquitoes have tested our ingenuity.

I ask every conceivable type of outdoor worker how they attempt to combat these nuisances of nature: a ranger in Algonquin Park, a forester, a hydro lineman, and a fishing guide. I approach the elderly lady in the cottage down the road who seems to spend all of her waking hours with her gnomes in the flower garden. I even query Health Canada. They all give variations of the same answer: “Wear long pants tucked into socks and a light-coloured, long-sleeved shirt with a collar, and, if you do not mind looking like a dork, a head net and peaked cap offers effective protection. Oh, and slather on the DEET.”

My Falkland Islander and I are determined to find a natural, green alternative to take back the outdoors. Well, actually, Danny has no clue, but it is my mission with him as bait. I will send my friend out into the breach, knowing that the mosquitoes and blackflies will gather from miles around, attracted, like Dracula, to this virgin blood source. Some might think me cruel; I call it research.

Biting insects are attracted to dark clothing. I buy Danny a black sweatshirt and don a white tee myself, before asking him to help me pile some firewood. I am left in relative peace, while Danny twitches, flails his arms, and swats his hands at an invisible enemy. Finally, with a cry, he runs off in search of some repellent. In his absence, the blackflies turn their attentions to me, making me realize that, though they may be attracted to dark clothing, if the only food available is the Man from Glad, they are not fussy eaters.

Perfumes, soaps, scented products, and hairsprays entice the biting flies. Danny has no hair, so hairspray is out, but I do convince him that Axe body scent not only attracts the ladies as much as they show in the commercials, it also repulses the flying pests. He soaks himself in it, ventures outside, and is swarmed by a cloud of females.

If you are thinking that I put all the research onus on my assistant, let me say that I also do my part. Since the biting bugs are attracted to the ammonia in sweat, I try lazing around instead of working, and, because mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, I suggest to my wife that she should try talking as little as possible while outdoors. Neither tactic is entirely successful.

Garlic apparently wards off more than vampires. It acts on the insect’s sensory capabilities, overwhelming them so they can’t smell the carbon dioxide and lactic acid that attracts them to humans. A concentrated garlic spray applied on plants, trees, and lawns may have your homestead smelling like an Italian restaurant, but it is somewhat successful. Try eating fresh garlic or a capsule of garlic powder every day. Unfortunately, this also overwhelms my wife’s sensory capabilities.

With the love of spring lost I turn to brewer’s yeast, feeling that this is finally something I can work with. In fact, I spend more time researching this bug deterrent than any other suggested to me. I’m not sure it succeeds. After ingesting a few bottles, I believe the bugs are just as interested in me, but I don’t really care.

Technology has taken over most facets of our lives, so it is not a surprise that it has involved itself in the battle of the bugs. CO2-based machines seem to work, provided they are positioned properly. We hook one up by the house, and I serve Danny his afternoon tea on the deck. In minutes he is being eaten alive, and I realize that the mosquitoes, attracted to the machine, pass by a pre-dinner appetizer. Remember to place the machine between the area to be protected and the area the mosquitoes are coming from.

While most of us do not appreciate biting flies, we must always remember they are an important part of the ecosystem. Birds, bats, and fish feed on them. Blackfly larvae are a sign of unpolluted waters, and it has been thought that the adults pollinate our beloved blueberries. And they have been called the region’s best conservationists — protecting wilderness from larger numbers of human trespassers.

My former friend Danny? The mosquitoes and blackflies might keep the less hardy away, but in his estimation the beauty of cottage country is worth some minor irritation. The only things that do really work for him are a netted suit that has him looking like a beekeeper, his self-roll cigarettes that keep everything away, and a heavy supply of AfterBite to deal with the inevitable attacks. Oh, and a late-afternoon Muskoka breeze that has him dreaming about the Falkland wind.

Nature’s Guardians

I attended the Spring Cottage Life Show in April. Yes, it is a show for dreaming — about that ultimate ski boat or sporty little sailboat, a new gazebo or sauna, a mobile drinks bar that follows you around, or that space-age, composting toilet. Okay, I don’t really dream about the toilet. There are toys and there are more toys, all meant to make your cottage experience more luxurious, more enjoyable, more exciting, and infinitely more comfortable.

When I had mentally used up my next year’s salary on gimmicks and playthings, it was the new green trend that caught my attention. Well, it’s not that new, but it does seem to be finally taking a firm foothold in our cottage behaviour. I know for too many years, for many of us the word “green” conjured up negative images of a utilitarian, uncomfortable retreat. I think we have finally began to realize that if we do not take steps to help preserve the natural beauty that surrounds us at our cottages, it might be lost to our children and future generations. As cottagers, we are privileged to share in the natural environment, but at the same time, we have a responsibility as nature’s guardians.

Far too often in the past, people have bought cottages for their wilderness value, and then tried to tame that wilderness. The process seemed logical. We would just tidy the place up a bit, make it more visually appealing and less of a mosquito haven. We would cut out the long grass and reeds that framed the beach along the shoreline. We would bring in some fine sand to make the beach seem more tropical.

We would thin the trees, cut back the bramble and undergrowth, plant some grass seed or bring in some sod to replace what we had removed, build a concrete retaining wall to separate lawn from sand, and then put down some chemicals to prevent the weeds from regaining a foothold. The cottage now looks tidy and cared for. Our view to the water has been enhanced, and the number of flying insects has been reduced.

We get so busy admiring and tending our manicured grounds and comfortable waterfront that we do not immediately notice that the ducks, mergansers, herons, and loons do not come around as much as they used to. The songbirds, who had brightened our mornings with their music, do not seem to be quite as exuberant. The frogs, too, no longer keep up their end in that beautiful symphony of the night. We blame these problems on global warming, lack of government environmental initiatives, or the wake from those unruly motorboats that zip past. Seldom do we look at ourselves as part of the problem.

But what can we do?

The truth of the matter is that the greenest thing you can do for nature is often just to leave it alone. In a cottage environment, that is, of course, impossible — but it is imperative that we minimize the disruption. Through urbanization we have banished, either deliberately or inadvertently, the abundant plant and animal life that lived there before our arrival. We must not let this happen at the cottage. While native plant life absorbs most surface water, over half the rainwater that falls on your manicured cottage lawn pours right over the grass and into the water, carrying with it any harmful fertilizers and pesticides.

To me, leaving things as they are sounds like the ultimate lazy man’s plan. I can chuck my “honey-do” list and head to the Muskoka chair on the dock, accompanied by my brand new, handy-dandy, mobile, follow-you-around bar.

Farewell to a Cottage Friend

I lost a good friend on the May long weekend. I wouldn’t say it was sudden; old age had set in, so it was not totally unexpected. Still, it came as a shock, and it certainly put a damper on our first visit to the cottage this year.

Worse, it was partially my fault. I ask myself, would he have stayed around a little longer if I had not been so rough with him? Perhaps I could have shown more tender, loving care. A thorough cleaning once in a while might have helped. He worked hard, he was efficient, and when done, what would I do in return? I would take what he offered and then shut him up, leave him standing there alone while I escaped to the comfort of the cabin to sit around with family and friends, talking, laughing, and dining. When a storm blew in, I would run off to the shelter of the cottage without a thought for him drenched in the rain. Often, I didn’t even bother to cover him up.

I am getting a tear in my eye now, just thinking about him. He was strong, unpretentious, loyal, and reliable. He was really nothing to look at. He was a bit greasy and sometimes smelled a little gassy. He moved about with a little bit of a limp in his later years. He had certain quirks and mannerisms that you just learned to accept, deal with, and work around. He was unbalanced, and his knob didn’t work properly. But he never let me down.

He was twenty-six years old when he finally bit it. Now, that doesn’t sound very old in human terms, but for a barbecue it is ancient. I know how old he was because we kids had given him to my parents on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. They celebrated their fiftieth last May. He spent some time at our family home, and then he was shuffled off to the cottage when a fancy brand name barbecue came along.

I do not remember feeling too bad for him, because the cottage is a nice place to retire. He didn’t want to retire, though, so he soldiered on. We would throw him in the dark, dank shed for winter, and then we’d pull him out upon our return to the cottage in spring. He never seemed to mind; actually, he seemed thrilled to see us. I’d throw on a propane tank and stand out there with him, flipping steaks or sausages or burgers. I would drink a cold beer and feed him a little bit of sauce. When he was done, I would give him a little scratch on the head with a wire brush, and he was content.

I hope you don’t mind me, in these politically correct times, calling this trusted outdoor cooking implement a he, but a barbecue just seems to me to be a masculine thing. He was always there when I needed him. He was great for my self-esteem. I have always been a little inept around the kitchen, but when I was partnered with him I could cook up whatever my wife sent my way. She could hand me a platter of chicken, beef, or ribs — no problem.

At home, three or four barbecues came and went. These shiny new appliances helped out for a little time, and then meekly packed it in. Even with all their bells and whistles and hefty price tags, they had nothing on our old comrade. When I bought the family cottage, I insisted that the purchase include this faithful friend. Perhaps it was cottage life that prolonged his existence; the beauty, the fresh air, the peacefulness. It seemed like he would live forever.

This spring, my wife set out a plate of T-bones, so off I went to the storage shed. I yanked him out … and then it happened. His top fell off, his body disintegrated into dust. I stood there, stunned and sad. Holding my hand was a wooden handle; it was all that was left of my friend.

I wandered into the cottage looking woeful and forlorn, and my wife could tell instantly something had happened.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“He’s gone,” I croaked. “Can you throw those steaks on the broiler?”

Boat Launch

It was a bit of a Mr. Bean moment. I had unstrapped the boat from the trailer and then backed it down into the water at the public boat launch. I jumped out of the car, went around back, released the winch, and unhooked the winch rope from the ring on the boat’s bow. It was then that I realized that I had not backed up quite far enough to get the boat afloat and free from the trailer. So I jumped back into the vehicle and inched it another foot backwards into the lake. The boat drifted free and floated out into the bay.

I stood there with my hands on my hips looking at my boat floating fifteen feet off shore. I tried to coax it in. “Come here, little boat,” I muttered. I thought about paddling my hands in the water, drawing them inwards to create a current that would pull the boat in, but decided that, although this technique works in the bathtub with my toy battleships or yellow ducky, it was not likely to work here in this big lake with a sixteen-foot runabout.

I used to be pretty good with a lariat in my horseman days, but the only rope I had of any length was stowed neatly in the boat’s storage locker. What to do? The breeze seemed to be picking up, ruffling the water and pushing the boat away. I didn’t even have my swim shorts with me. I looked around: nobody was there, no one was around to bear witness to my foolhardiness. In that respect, at least, it was my lucky day. I removed my shoes, rolled up my jeans, and stepped gingerly into the lake.

I thought if I were able to walk out to my knees and then stretch my arms fully, I might just be able to reach. I sloshed out deeper, but the boat seemed to be drifting away at the same speed. I was past my knees, then the cold water was cooling my tender regions, causing me to walk on tiptoes. Soon I was swimming, doing the breast stroke until I reached a dragging boat line. I turned and towed the boat towards shore.

I remembered the time when I had been so excited, and in such a rush to get over to our island cottage, that I had arrived at the launch and backed the boat in, forgetting to put the plug in the vessel. I backed it down into the water, unhooked it, got it started, and ran it over to the dock to load our gear and provisions. An old-timer standing there with a fishing line in the water, barely giving me any notice, mumbled almost incoherently, “Yer boat seems to be ridin’ low, young fella.” A pause to spit some tobacco. “Appears to be sinking — sure you ’membered the plug?”

As I swam, fully clothed, for shore, I consoled myself with the fact that at least this time, my act of stupidity had gone unseen. Too soon, as it turned out. I was halfway back, stretching my toes to feel the bottom, when I heard an approaching truck. I panicked and swam hard. Unfortunately, tugging a boat along slows you down. I was still a ways out when the vehicle came into view. I froze and dropped low in the water: “Please don’t look this way.”

A sister’s boat is asking to be hijacked.

My heart sank. It was the Brat and his grandpa, the same grandpa we had rented a boat from when our boat had broken down in the middle of the lake. It was the same precocious youngster who had called me a dummy, who had said that I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to boats.

The truck stopped and their heads slowly, and in unison, turned my way. Realizing that hiding was futile, I gave them a little wave, like I take my boat for a swim everyday.

“Grandpa, what’s that dummy doing now?” I heard the Brat’s voice through the truck’s open window.

“Hush,” said Grandpa. And then he yelled out the window to me, “Need a hand?”

“No. No, I’m good. Just checking for leaks,” I tried, knowing all too well that by evening, at the latest, my folly would be common knowledge around the lake.

“Grandpa?”

“Hush,” he said again, and they drove on.

The Robin

Once upon a midday dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my cottage door.

I heard the tapping, but could not immediately place the noise. It sounded like one of the kids playing a joke, tapping on the cabin door and interrupting my work. I yelled for quiet, but then realized I was being dim-witted: I was at the cottage myself this time. Still, my bellow had the desired effect and the outside world was once again peaceful.

I peered out the big dining room window at the front porch of the cabin, but seeing nothing I returned to my work. Before too long, the noise started up again, tap, tap, tap.

I got up from the table and looked out the window … nothing. With a furrowed brow I threw open the door. On the porch stood a robin — just a robin and nothing more. I jumped back with a start. Not that I am afraid of a robin, of course, but having such a bird knocking at my cottage door was slightly eerie. The robin, seeing me, also gave a start, dropped a thread of dead grass from her beak, and flew off with a squawk.

I looked around, smiled, then shut the door. I returned to my laptop and began tapping away myself. With no repeat of the rapping on the door, I soon got back into the rhythm of my work. During a brief pause and deep in thought, I gazed out over the beautiful lake. Suddenly I was greeted by the horrifying spectacle of a dark shape hurtling itself against the large window. I jumped up and ran to look, expecting to see a poor, stunned bird lying dying on the cottage porch.