Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2019 från Cottage Life

Life Below Zero: Canada We’re super excited to share our new series, a north-of-the-border take on the Emmy-Award-winning show. From long, dark winters to hot, bug-infested summers, watch these intrepid men and women battle predators and the elements. Coming to the Cottage Life channel in March, and meantime, enjoy the original on Tuesdays at 9 ET/PT. Go behind the scenes with us on Instagram Get a sneak peek at our photo shoots, the inside scoop on new issues of Cottage Life, and share your feedback and ideas—you might appear in the magazine! CALLING ALL NATURE LOVERS! If you enjoy getting outside at the cottage, love learning about wildlife, and care about the environment, you’re going to love The Great Outdoors, our new e-newsletter. It brings you nature profiles, amazing animal…

It’s a cool, cool world we live in. As he was taking his dock out of the water before freeze-up, Ken Hall, a Prosperous Lake, N.W.T., cabin owner, captured this photo of the “ice bells” that had formed on the aluminum frame. “Once we removed the decking, we got a good look at these crazy icicles,” says Ken. What’s the deal with the bulbous shape? “Ice bells form when icicles hang close to a liquid water surface,” says Stephen Morris, a physics professor and the co-creator of the Icicle Atlas, an online database of more than 230,000 icicle images. “Waves splashing from the surface supply water to the ends of existing icicles, so they grow ‘bulbs’ like that.” Ken has seen ice on the dock before, “but never hanging like…

You come inside from the snowmobile trails on a crisp winter day, ready for a cup of hot chocolate, but there’s nowhere to put your gear. Instead of dumping everything on the floor, use this shelf, which holds three snowmobile helmets and cold-weather gear. But even if you’re not a sledder, it can be used as entryway storage, and you can easily modify the dimensions. I used off-the-shelf Western red cedar balusters for the brackets, and the slats are cut from 5/4 cedar deck boards so they’re a full 1" thick. The brackets are spaced 16" apart so they line up with standard wall stud spacing for maximum hold strength. 1 Cut the 2x2 cedar balusters for the vertical and horizontal brackets to length. 2 Use a sliding compound mitre…

Q: “Last year I winterized my cottage—which was a big job but seemed sensible at the time. Then winter rolled around, and I only went up for one weekend. I feel like I’ve just wasted a whole bunch of money on something I won’t use. Was I wrong to winterize? Everyone said it was the best way to go.” A: I know it’s hard for many people to imagine, but there once was a period in history when having a year-round cottage with all the mod cons of home was the exception, not the rule. Back then, cottages were mostly for warm weather use, and in the fall—usually on Thanksgiving weekend—the pump got drained, and shutters were hung for another long winter. That, of course, was ancient history. Today, it…

IT’S 8 A.M., SATURDAY, AND OUR WEEKEND BEGINS with a helicopter ride. We snap together harness buckles and don headsets as the engine of the Airbus EC130 whines to life. The rotors accelerate, catch, and push the ground away at a startling rate. We huck into a rare February bluebird sky. It’s easy to imagine that this is just a typical weekend out for Jacynte (JC) Leroux and Scot Keith, the well-swaddled couple in the back seat. As it turns out, they have gone heli-hiking before, but this is their first trip out to an ice cave. We’re taking off from the decidedly upscale municipality of Whistler, B.C., only a 20-minute drive—maybe a five-minute helicopter hop—away from their Pemberton retreat in the mountains. We might have even seen their place…

My three brothers and I had this game that we used to play as we drove away from the cottage after closing up each fall. We would systematically, using our most forlorn voices, take turns saying a specific farewell to each part of the cottage. Things we loved and lived on all summer: Goodbye, dock! Things that fascinated but scared us: Goodbye, snakes! And things that we used to fight over a million times a day that were completely insignificant to anyone but us: Goodbye, ABC towels! If only I knew then what I now feel in every bit of my bones: that this ritual was like a clock, slowly ticking by the innocent days of my childhood summers, as overdramatic as that may seem. We deeply lamented those goodbyes,…

About a year and a half ago, my daughter and I started talking about customizing a board game that would chronicle our family and our cottage on Beaver Lake, Ont. On the heels of my in-laws both (successfully!) going through cancer surgeries, we’d come to realize that we all needed the cottage—and the family time that goes with it—more than ever. Then we stumbled upon some Monopoly trivia. We read that the Policeman, who has been sending people to jail from his corner on the board since the game’s earliest versions, apparently has a name: Officer Edgar Mallory. Once we saw the Mallory name, we knew that we had to make our own version of the game. Out of maple and cherry, we created a six-sided, laser-engraved board with 48…

Flying to a cottage on the B.C. coast is about to get a lot quieter and more environmentally friendly. Float plane operator Harbour Air is replacing the fossil-fuel-burning engine on one of its six passenger de Havilland Beavers with a 750 hp electric motor. The move—a first in the commercial aviation industry—is the initial step towards converting the airline’s entire fleet to electric. “We’re excited to bring commercial electric aviation to the Pacific Northwest,” says Greg McDougall, Harbour Air’s founder and CEO. The airline was also Canada’s first to go carbon neutral. The de Havilland Aircraft company of Canada produced 1,600 of its DHC-2 Beaver bush planes—“workhorses of the North”— between 1947 and 1967. The biggest challenge with making the transition to electric is the weight of the batteries; Harbour…

Q: I am looking to buy new appliances for our uninsulated cottage. Is there an issue with the temperature? Some people are saying they would not last a year in these conditions.—TERRY SKINDILIAS, BIG RIDEAU, ONT. A: “Well, that’s one opinion,” says Russ Row, the general manager at Ben’s Appliances in Surrey, B.C. “And opinions are like belly buttons. Everyone has one.” In this case, though, Row and every other expert we talked to, including those in Red Deer, Alta., and Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes, had the same opinion: assuming you thoroughly winterize anything that contains water—drain every drop; add non-toxic (a.k.a. RV) antifreeze where appropriate—your appliances will most likely survive. “I have a hard time believing the temperature alone would cause problems,” says Brad Pembleton of Al’s Appliance Repair in…

Ah, the “off-season” at the lake. The peace. The quiet. The wildlife crossing pristine ice—ah, yes, the ice. In 2019, winter ice damage and spring floods left cottagers scrambling to protect and repair shoreline structures. Katie Peet of R & J Machine in Lakefield, Ont., says that they fielded several calls from cottagers looking to install de-icers. “If they have a couple of feet of water, they can put one in to open up ice so it can’t be pushed and piled on the shoreline,” she says. “Some people use a chainsaw to open up the ice, but you may have to do that every day because it freezes over again at night.” Winter is coming Ice expands as it melts, until it turns to water. Cracks will form in…

Oh, Snap! Grand Prize Alisha Neubauer hit the shutter button at just the right moment to get this shot at her trailer park on Pigeon Lake, Ont. Although she planted her son, Mason, and his friend on the dock, she hadn’t asked them to kick around in the water. The droplets she captured using a slow shutter speed take the photo to the next level. Plus, the warm, glowing sunset not only acts as a backlight to help balance this shot, but it also brought us into the moment, making us imagine we were sitting there too. “Everyone was super-pumped about Canada Day,” says Alisha. “We all spent the day running around with the flag and decked out in red and white gear.” 1st Place LANDSCAPES We’ve seen a lot…

No bigger than a sparrow, North America’s smallest and perhaps least timid woodpecker is a perennial favourite at winter bird feeders across Canada. The season, even without handouts, offers little impediment to the busy, stubby-billed downy woodpecker, which normally searches for its meals in the tiniest of hiding places within mixed and broadleaf forests. Downy woodpeckers methodically scale trees and shrubs, probing and tapping for beetles, ants, cocoons, and egg masses resting within crevices or just beneath the bark, uncrating them with pinprick precision and the help of a long, sticky, barbed tongue. Females tend to work the lower trunk and major limbs, while their red-patched mates frequent thinner branches and even tall, dead plant stalks, often piercing goldenrod galls for the juicy larvae within. In late winter, they sometimes…

All the feels I was at the cottage reading the Oct. ’19 issue, and I couldn’t decide whether to cry or laugh…or maybe both! “A Box of Love” (Waterfront) reminded me of my dear stepdad who passed away 13 years ago. I used to love watching him putter in his garage at the cottage. Then my tears turned to laughter when I read “We Mocked the Signs.” Our cat stays home now since he has thrown up (or worse!) numerous times during transport. Thanks for the tears and laughter!—SUSAN WALKER, LONG LAKE, ONT. The great debate Who knew a question about poop would cause so much discussion? In “Call and Response” (Your Letters, Oct. ’19), Diane Marcou asked if the mystery “poop” could be seeds from maple keys. She’s right!…

Batman or bat? More super: Bat Batman is rich and hot. He has a grappling gun and a butler. And he probably doesn’t have rabies. Still, in the summer, bats eat thousands and thousands of mosquitoes every night. Sold. Ant-Man or ant? More super: Ant Ants roll out of bed tiny and extraordinarily strong: one ant can carry as much as 50 times its own body weight. Ant-Man is just an ex-con with the ability to shrink himself thanks to a really awesome motorcycle suit. And we’ve yet to see him carry 50 people on his back. Don’t steal our plot line, Marvel! Poison Ivy or poison ivy? More super: Poison Ivy She’s a supervillain eco-terrorist with a deadly kiss. But she’s also a botanist. As a cottage neighbour, she’d…

With Jack Frost nipping, it’s a good time to check your cottage for drafts and cold spots. The high-tech approach is to use an infrared thermometer. These point-and-click devices, which cost $25 to $150, take surface-temperature readings from a couple of feet away. There are more old-school methods, though: simply feel around with the back of a hand or bare feet (if you dare). To find drafts, pass a lit incense stick around windows, door frames, and baseboards, and see if the smoke flutters. Also, cobwebs may indicate an air leak; spiders often build webs where breezes usher in insects. You might want to wait for warmer weather if you need to take walls apart to add insulation, but you can seal gaps any time using caulking or spray foam…

Ice covered the flooded road to the cottage. At 15 cm, it probably wasn’t thick enough to support our half-ton truck; but since the water was only 10 cm deep, was there any harm in trying to cross? Even if we did break through, recovering a pickup truck from a foot-deep error in judgment shouldn’t be too hard, right? Sure enough, rifle-like cracks signalled our mistake when the truck crashed through the ice and sank to the front bumper. Uh oh. Reversing proved impossible at such an angle on the ice. We’d have to winch the ol’ horse out. Using the right type of cable can make the whole operation safer. Synthetic cable, which looks and feels more like rope, is superior to steel for a bunch of reasons. Made…

Q: We have a cottage (in Ontario) that we never use in the winter. Can we disconnect our hydro service to reduce our electricity bill?—ABIGAIL REESE, VIA EMAIL A: Sorry, but that move won’t save you any money. In fact, it will cost you more. If you cancel your service, Hydro One has to remove all of its equipment from your property—meters, transformers, poles—and then reinstall everything when you reconnect. Because of that, the baseline cost for reconnection “is significantly higher than paying for the cost of delivery through the winter,” says Hydro One’s Tiziana Baccega Rosa. “Staying connected is always cheapest.” (This is the case for Ontario; other provinces have their own rules and fees.) To keep your bill as low as possible in the off-season, unplug everything, and…

MAKE IT, STUFF IT Pork and Bok Choy Dumplings MAKES ABOUT 50 DUMPLINGS This versatile Chinese-style filling recipe can easily be adapted to one or two of our variations (opposite), or sub in other ground meat for the pork and almost any leafy vegetable or mushroom for the bok choy. Tofu adds moisture, but you can replace it with ground meat, if you prefer. 250 g ground pork1 cup finely chopped baby bok choy⅔ cup tofu, crumbled (see Tip, below)2 cloves garlic, finely chopped¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry2 tsp soy sauce2 tsp cornstarch1 tsp sugar½ tsp sesame oil (optional)50 wonton wrappers (3-inch dia.) 1 In a large bowl, stir together pork, bok choy, tofu, and garlic until well combined. 2 In another bowl, stir together rice wine,…