A lot of real-estate zaniness has transpired these past two-plus years, but nowhere was witness to more transactional madness than cottage country. The culprits, we now know, were the droves of stressed-out Torontonians roaming the region, pre-approvals in hand, eyes bulging. They wanted space, serenity and nature, and they were willing to pay whatever to make it happen. While I wasn’t part of that horde, I understood the impulse entirely.
I was lucky enough to spend many of my adolescent summers lakeside. I rowed, water-skied, kayaked, refined my J-stroke. I learned to make sap boats, loon calls, s’mores. It was at a friend’s cottage that I drank my first beer—an unholy lemon-lime malted mixture called Boomerang—and then buried the evidence before my parents could find out.
To me, cottages were…
