Innehållsförteckning för June/July 2022 från Cottage Life

Follow us on: It’s time to listen up! Host Michelle Kelly is hard at work on season three of The Cottage Life Podcast. Exciting guests are in the mix, including the makers of our loon documentary (see p. 97) and the producer of Life Below Zero Canada. Catch up on seasons one and two, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. That’s a wrap (for now) A big thank you to everyone who attended our in-person spring consumer shows in Toronto and Ottawa. We had some great conversations, and we’re bursting with new story ideas. If you were too shy to say hi, we would still love to connect: edit@cottagelife.com. See you in the fall! The wild, wild west Cool show alert—a new season of Merchants of the Wild is…

Rob Csernyik Six years ago, Rob Csernyik was spending his days at a home-goods store he owned. “During quiet hours, I would read magazines and a lot of great journalism. I thought to myself, You’ve always had an interest in writing. Why not try it out?” So eventually, Rob sold his store, completed a journalism program, and started writing professionally. You can read his work in “Years in the Making” (p. 64), where he shares his passion for a cottage classic: coffee. “We think of making coffee at the cottage with an old percolator,” he says. “But this is about enhancing the experience and having a coffee bar at the cottage.” Rob used to work as a barista, so we trust him with our favourite morning ritual. Rob is the…

22 Do you know the Indigenous roots of dream catchers? 23 The s’more has a long, delicious, and sometimes bizarre history. 24 A giant fish gets a really giant cash donation… for a facelift. 28 Two couples. One teenie tiny cottage. Friendship ensues!…

EVERY BODY IN Just in time for hiking season, the Trans Canada Trail announced that it has added another 25 sections to its AccessNow app. The TCT began its Accessibility Mapping Program in 2021. The program collects information, including photos and descriptions, from “mappers” on the trail; the data tells the TCT which parts of the 28,000 km-long trail have barriers that need to be removed to make the route more accessible to all. The app can then give users info about the mapped trail sections so they know what to expect before heading out. “We want people of all abilities to enjoy safe, outdoor experiences with their friends, families, and neighbours,” says Eleanor McMahon, the president and CEO of Trans Canada Trail. “With trail use up 50 per cent…

Cover all the details The couples spent hours creating what they describe as their “MOU”—Memorandum of Understanding—that lasts for five years. It covers how expenses and time at the place are shared and, perhaps more importantly, what happens if someone pulls out of the agreement early and how they would handle it. At the end of five years, they’ll discuss the arrangement again. Put it in writing The group uses Google Docs to track everything. There’s nothing formal that says who gets which weekend—“and I wouldn’t expect anyone to block out the whole summer,” says Justine—but so long as either party doesn’t exceed their allotted 45 days, it’s flexible. Be prepared for some conflict “You can never anticipate all possible misunderstandings,” says Justine. Lucky for the group, she’s a skilled…

BY THE TIME HER birthday rolls around in late August, Christina Jones has been at her island cottage since mid-June, mostly by herself, and basically marooned. There’s a kayak and a rowboat, but the septuagenarian is at the end of Baie Fine—a freshwater fjord culminating in the Pool, a lake-like pocket surrounded by Killarney Provincial Park—and the nearest marina, the one that taxied her in here, is some 20 kilometres away. Cell coverage is iffy, at best, and Christina typically can’t be bothered even trying. The days have bobbed along, borne on the rhythms of reading and knitting, of fetching water from the lake, of visits from kingfishers and snapping turtles. Often it’s enough to simply gaze at the circumvallate hills, chalky in colour but harder than marble, not to…

You see themeverywhere when they’re missing A favourite coffee mug…gardening gloves…an old raincoat…that rose just about to bloom…her paddle… She’s there even when she isn’t. In fact, in this particular place, she’s here more than anywhere else. We fell in love here at this little lake at the end of Limberlost Road. We honeymooned here 50 years ago this September. She had the jeweller inscribe a message on the inside of the rings we exchanged: “You and me, buds for all times.” We were going to retire at the lake—two old “buds” on a last great adventure. Who knew that “for all times” would run out so quickly? Ellen’s parents built this simple cottage in the late 1960s. Camp Lake is pretty and clean, with a long finger of a…

Common loons are incredibly agile underwater, propelled by powerful, widely splayed legs, which are placed far back on their bodies. This makes walking difficult, but enables them to out-swim and catch dozens of perch, minnows, and other small fish a day. With heavy, solid-boned bodies, the diving specialists need lake-top runways of 30 to several hundred metres—depending on the wind—to achieve lift off. Once airborne, however, they commonly clock 120 kilometres an hour in steadily flapping flight, often calling while overhead. Loons lay eggs in late May or early June. Mates take turns, about every two to four hours, tending to the speckled eggs atop a concealed, shallow mound of grass and sedge at the shoreline. The nest is perched just above water that’s deep enough to permit a quick…

HAVE YOU NOTICED that during this pandemic, masks have become the new rearview mirror decoration? I’ve liked that, because masks have replaced the dream catcher as regularly featured mirror decor, a choice that has bugged me for years. Along with headdresses, the dream catcher is one of the most appropriated and exploited Indigenous symbols. There are lots of dream catcher tattoos out there. Miley Cyrus has one. Now, there are claims to Cherokee ancestry in her family, and that might be true, but guess what? Dream catchers aren’t actually from the Cherokee. Whoops. Whoever you are, if you’re going to display a dream catcher, you should at least know its meaning, value, and symbolism to the appropriate Indigenous people. I’ll get you started. The dream catcher is a part of…

“Keeping it a secret.” “I have never heard of a butter tart. These look gross. Are they supposed to look like that?” “My mother-in-law.” “I don’t like butter tarts and I always wonder why these stories seem to be related to cottage living.” “Me. Homemade. Mine.” THE GREAT EIGHT 1 Don’s Bakery, Bala (also in Barrie) 2 The Kawartha Buttertart Factory, Douro-Dummer (also in Peterborough) 3 Doo Doo’s Bakery, Bailieboro 4 Quaker Oaks Farm, Sebright 5 Henrietta’s Pine Bakery, Dwight (also in Huntsville) 6 The Sweet Oven, Barrie (also in Orillia and Niagara Falls) 7 Mariposa Market, Orillia 8 Wilkie’s Bakery & Pizza, Orillia *WE KNOW THERE ARE AWESOME BUTTER TART JOINTS IN OTHER PARTS OF CANADA. TELL US ABOUT THEM: EDIT@COTTAGELIFE.COM.…

Unleash your inner putterer! 41 cottage upgrades you can do in a weekend (or less) 1. Install a towel bar across the back of the chair. That’s where the towels belong, not on your seat. 2. Golf tees (drill a hole, pop in a tee) make useful hangers for light add-ons, like a solar phone charger. 3. Preserve and protect: Place each leg in a small foil container (the size and shape you need is available in aisle three of any dollar store), and pour in a shot of end-cut preservative. Let the preservative soak in for a few hours. 4. With a router, cut a dado across one arm. The slot holds your phone upright for hands-free video calls. 5. Stash something secret under the seat, or keep your…

AT MY CHILDHOOD cottage on Keats Island, B.C., collections lived in every corner. Small villages of rocks formed on side tables; jars of green, blue, and brown sea glass winked on the window sill; ferns and flowers dried between book pages. More ambitious acquisitions—a deer skull or an abandoned wasp’s nest—my parents relegated to the porch. These days, my collections are more on the modest side, consisting primarily of a few stones, shells, driftwood, and an old, rusted railway spike, most of which I keep on a table next to my writing desk. Everyone is a collector in our small town of Atlin, B.C., which is cottage country to Whitehorse, Yukon. My neighbours’ homes are full of fossils, smooth river stone, and 19th-century gold mining artifacts, often displayed with shrine-like…