Indholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2022 i Cottage Life

Follow us on: Hey Ottawa, what do you say? It’s Cottage Life Show season in Ontario—we’re back in-person for you too, Ottawa! The Ottawa Cottage Life & Backyard Show is happening April 22–24 at the EY Centre. We can’t wait to see you IRL (that’s “in real life”). To buy tickets, visit cottagelife.com/shows. Book smart Did you know that you can reserve your summer rental cottage right through our website? We have options to explore across the country—places for families, getaways with hot tubs, cabins with mountain views, and whatever else you fancy. Book at cottagelife.com/rentals. Keeping up with the real estate market Say hello to The Key—a free, biweekly enewsletter that we’ve added to our current slate. It’s the home of stories about buying, renting (and renting out), selling,…

□ Evict the bats, raccoons, skunks, and mice from your cottage. Humanely. You’re not a monster. (p.74) □ Figure out what the heck is going on with your temperamental outboard—before you hit the water. (p.70) □ Join your lake association. Just…not if the other members are mean and exclusionary. (p.43) □ Tackle baking at the cottage. “But I’m not a baker!” Whatever. You are. You are in 2022. (p.80) □ Finally fix your window condensation problems. (p.32) □ Eat more chips. What? That’s a legitimate 2022 goal. (p.21) □ Make a cool new guest book. (p.86) □ Stop struggling with dull tools. (The implements, not the people.) Here’s how to sharpen them. (p.33) □ Put up a nest box for wood ducks. They are, after all, the sexiest of all…

IS IT COLD in here, or is it just that Life Below Zero Canada is back for a second season? That’s right: the documentary series, set in the harsh Canadian north, returns to the Cottage Life channel this year for another eight-episode run. And with a new cast member! Jonathan Grenier—a half-Inuit, half-French father of two from Kuujjuaq, Que.—joins first-season stars Becky Broderick, Bentley Kakekayash, and best friends and trappers Kim Pasche and Pierre-Yves Duc. Jonathan is an avid angler and hunter; one of his goals is to teach his two sons as much as he can about Inuit traditions and knowledge. Naturally, season two of LBZ Canada also offers up some of the same challenges as season one. Bad weather. Off-grid struggles. Animal predators. And, at the height of…

SINCE T-REXY’S INTRODUCTION in Cottage Life (“He’s Got Good Bones,” May ’20), his life, and ours, has changed dramatically. To everyone’s surprise, his family has mysteriously grown. We awoke early one morning last summer to see two baby dinosaurs emerging from their eggs. We couldn’t believe our eyes. Eagle Lake, Ont., visitors named these little dinosaurs Yakety and Yak. They resemble T-Rexy with their piercing red eyes, distinctive roars, and their fun-loving attitudes. This became evident when T-Rexy and the young’uns not only began to roar in unison at visitors, but also in the rain and during holiday fireworks. My wife, Barbara, and I are pleased that, during these periods of isolation and these challenging times, the three dinosaurs continue to have fun and share joy with their new and…

WHILE WASHING THE dishes one winter day at the cottage, I noticed our water smelled pretty funky. A peek into our artesian well revealed that a family of moles had dug underneath the decorative stone border, shimmied through a crack, and fallen in. We had no idea how long that mole soup had been simmering, but we knew we had to disinfect the well immediately. Even if you don’t smell anything, says K.C. Craig Stainton, the executive director of the Ontario Ground Water Association, drinking water containing traces of E. coli or coliform can make you sick. For new wells, test the water in the spring, summer, and fall for two years. “If all results show zero bacteria, the tests don’t need to be repeated unless the well or pumping…

MY DEAR FRIEND Max and her family recently bought a farm. They love it. Their weekends there so far have been full of family visits and new friends, their kids playing in the old barn in the summer and skating on the homemade rink all winter. It’s been idyllic in nearly every way, but for one small thing, which I witnessed myself a few weeks ago. While enjoying my delightful first cup of Saturday morning coffee by the fire, I heard Max, exasperated, call from the kitchen: “How did they get in!?” After many years at CL and many more cottaging, I knew immediately who “they” were. Like a true hero, I went to help. Max was standing on the cellar stairs, staring into her “pantry”—an old wooden cupboard nailed…

SINCE MY ARTICLE came out in Cottage Life (June/July 2021), I’ve had a lot of interactions with people who genuinely want to understand appropriation. They’ve seen something or done something that they have questioned, based on what they read. The reality is that when something is new, as the issue of appropriation versus appreciation is, it takes a while to get used to it. Recently, somebody sent me a note asking about a piece of clothing they’d bought. Once they got it home, they weren’t sure if it was okay for them to wear. Would it show appreciation for the culture, or would it be appropriation? The first thing to ask is where the clothing originated. If, say, you bought a pair of moccasins, and there’s no indication of who…

HAVE YOU GOT an old sailing dinghy stashed in your boathouse? If you do, Rob Mazza wants to know about it. A passionate marine historian and a former designer for the legendary Canadian builder C&C Yachts, Mazza has embarked on this latest project with the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston, Ont. His goal is to track down old racing dinghies, both wood and fiberglass, particularly a high-performance 14-foot design that originated as the Canadian 14 in the 1890s. By the 1930s, it had evolved to become the International 14. For almost a century, many of Canada’s top sailors have raced these sleek, fast boats. When Mazza asks what happened to the boats, he’s frequently told that they were “sold into cottage country.” About 20 were even built…

IN THE 1998 FILM The Horse Whisperer, Annie MacLean (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) tracks down Tom Booker (Robert Redford) and says, “I read this article about what you do for people with horse problems.” To which he replies, “Truth is, I help horses with people problems.” It’s not so different with engines: some mechanics just seem to have a way of understanding the meaning of every knock and grind. According to one outboard whisperer, most outboard problems are “human inspired” and, with routine maintenance and proper winterizing, can be avoided. I can relate. Our old two-stroke Johnson Sea-Horse outboard engine was a hot-blooded, temperamental creature. It took a steady hand to make her go. Coax her too lightly, and she wouldn’t start. Yank too hard, and you’d be left holding…

Fishing for compliments Tia Vetere purchased her cottage on Miskwabi Lake, Ont., in May 2019, just as the May issue of CL arrived in her mailbox. Tia, an artist, loved cottager Bonny Shawyer’s painted fish guest book idea so much, she copied it. Now Tia keeps art supplies at her cottage, and her friend’s husband cuts out a new supply of fish every few months for family and friends to decorate, sign, and date. “I tell people to make the fish represent themselves,” says Tia. A hairdresser friend added a spiky hairstyle to her fish, and Tia’s aunt, who loves to sew, glued on lace and buttons. “The best part is that the people who are reluctant to paint or don’t think they have any artistic talent end up designing…

This megawatt project is mega, mega huge Can you imagine what a collection of 1.3 million solar panels would look like? Yeah, neither can we. But by the end of 2022, such a ginormous creation will exist. Late last year, Alberta’s Greengate Power began construction on the largest solar farm in Canada. The farm will take up more space than 1,500 football fields, produce 465 megawatts of power, and provide a green energy source for roughly 200,000 residences. Greengate is building the project in southern Alberta, not far from Vulcan, a.k.a. the “Star Trek Capital of the World.” Why? The area gets, on average, 300 days of sunshine per year—in other words, equivalent to the state of Florida. The solar farm is expected to operate for at least 35 years,…

RECENT RESEARCH WARNS that unless wind farms take swift conservation action, Canada’s largest species of bat is at risk of disappearing. The research, funded by the Electric Power Research Institute, a North American not-for-profit for energy and environmental research, found that without interventions, our hoary bat population could decline by 50 per cent in the next six years. The hoary bat is the most frequent bat species observed dead during post-construction monitoring of wind farms across Canada and the U.S. It appears that the bats fly into the rotating turbines and die from the collision. Little is known about what attracts hoary bats to wind farms or why they collide with turbines at such a high rate, says Winifred Frick, the chief scientist at Bat Conservation International and the co-author…

IF YOUR COTTAGE WINDOWS have condensation or wet sill plates, it’s a sign that something’s wrong. Ignore a weepy window, and you’ll eventually have to contend with mouldy frames, rotten studs, and expensive repairs. Spare yourself future grief with these three simple fixes. Pane fog The temperature dropped and now your windows have gone all misty. Condensation on windows is caused by warm humid air meeting cold glass. Throw open the curtains; in warm weather, open the windows and let in some fresh air. Window coverings can trap air against the window, insulating the glass and making it colder. Opening the window encourages air circulation and replaces humid indoor air with dry outdoor air. If this doesn’t do the trick, there may just be too much water in the air.…

STORING, CLEANING, and using your files properly pays off with sharper teeth and better performance. The alternative—a dull, clogged, or rusted file—is pretty much useless. Never store your files loose in a tool box or drawer. Almost everyone does this, but banging against other metal tools dulls a file as fast as vigorous use. And never let files get rusty, even a little. Rust usually attacks and erodes the thinnest areas of metal first. In this case, those areas are the all-important tips of the file’s teeth. After using your files, give them a shot of something oily, such as WD-40, especially if they live in an unheated shed or workshop. This will prevent rust, especially if you wrap the files individually in cloth afterwards. Don’t use the boiled linseed…

FOREST, FERNS, AND LOTS OF BUGS. Mike Kelar’s first memories of his family cottage on Otter Lake, Ont., are of a rugged wildness. There was nothing else there in 1978. Mike was five years old, and his sister, Karen, was eight, when his parents, Stan and Raija, purchased an empty, three-acre lot near Parry Sound. In the following years, the Kelars built a series of small structures on the property—a sauna first (a necessity—Raija is Finnish), then a small cabin and an outhouse. There was no running water or heat, but the family made it a happy summer home for decades. “It was great for my imagination,” says Mike, a graphic designer and the co-founder of Jacknife, a creative branding agency. “There was so much space and time for my…