Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2025 från Cottage Life

*TAP* add to cart If you weren’t able to find your size at our last consumer show or you need a gift for the cottager on your list, you can now buy CL merch online. See the whole line of T-shirts, hats, hoodies, at cottagelife.com/shop. Calling all mystery nerds! In Prime Suspect: Earth, a new show coming soon to the Cottage Life channel, a team of expert investigators digs into whether Mother Nature is to blame for some of history’s most mysterious occurrences. They use the latest data and science to build a virtual crime scene where events occurred. Then, they step inside the simulation to unravel clues and crack the case. Now that’s technology we can get behind! Keep your eye on our website for more details about the…

RUDOLPH TO THE RESCUE Research out of a Finnish university shows that reindeer (a.k.a. caribou) grazing habits in boreal forests can soften the negative impact of climate change on the carbon cycle. Climate-related variations in winter snow cover affect how forests exchange carbon with the air, resulting in an uneven pattern of carbon release from one year to the next. But the results of the four-year study suggest that rein-deer can help keep the carbon exchange rate steady because of how their grazing impacts the forest understory and soil, the researchers reported in a press release. (Santa was unavailable for comment.) A PORTO-BELLO POTTY In late September, researchers at UBC launched the world’s first “mushroom-powered” toilet. (Yes, you read that right.) The waterless, composting MycoToilet uses mycelia—the root networks of…

IF THERE’S A season that calls for fondue, it’s winter. Made popular in the 1970s, this kitschy treat is warm, delicious—and fun. Want to try it at the cottage this year? We asked cookbook author and cheese expert, Gurth M. Pretty, the owner of Lakeview Cheese Galore in Mississauga, Ont., for his tips. 1 Use a combination of flavourful cheese varieties that will melt well. Swiss-style fondue is the most well-known version, typically made with a mix of Gruyère, Emmental, and Appenzeller, but other great cheese options include year-old cheddar, Gouda, or aged Havarti. 2 To make a simple fondue from scratch, no specialty fondue pot necessary, use the stove and a saucepan, or a slow cooker. Along with cheese—plan for about 200 grams, shredded, per person—you’ll need garlic, white…

WOODWORKERS PRIDE THEMSELVES on tightly mitred corners with near-invisible seams—imagine the skill needed to make a corner that is literally seamless. Bentwood box making is a woodworking tradition developed over thousands of years by First Nations people of the northwest Pacific coast. The four sides of a box are shaped from a single plank, typically cedar. The artist cuts three precise incisions—kerf joints—into one side of the plank before steaming and bending it into shape. After pegging or sewing the fourth corner shut, and adding tight bottoms and lids, the boxes are sturdy and complete. Indigenous people used some boxes for transport, made some to standard sizes to facil-itate trade, and used others for food storage. And cooking: since the boxes could be made watertight, they could be filled with…

“See? See? She’s the one getting hair all over your pillow.”—Jim Carpenter, Lac Louisa, Que. “I knew I should have repaired the foundation last summer.”—Amy Smith, Upper Rideau Lake, Ont. “I’ve seen things you could never imagine down here.”—Shawn Houghtling, Ahmic Lake, Ont. “You guys never take our holiday card seriously! You didn’t even dress up this year.”—Karina Clark, Bala Park Island, Ont. “They said, ‘Jump,’ and I said, ‘How high?’ Big mistake.”—Julie Dreger, Smoke Lake, Ont. “Look, the stories about me were exaggerated. You will not turn to stone.”—Lisa Commodore, Otonabee River, Ont. “I know you have a good sense of direction, but the earth was different 245 million years ago.”—Caroline Boast, Varty Lake, Ont. “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to come…

1 Since wind chill doesn’t affect inanimate objects, it has no impact on whether or not your pipes will freeze in the winter. So, pfft—you don’t need to pay attention to that part of the weather forecast. ● True ● False 2 Road salt starts losing its ability to melt surface ice and snow at temperatures around -10°C. ● True ● False 3 You can use bubble wrap as winter insulation. Well, as long as you don’t pop the bubbles. (Resist! Impulse!) ● True ● False 4 In the event of a power outage (thanks for that, ice storm), a freezer that’s half-full will stay cold for longer than one that’s packed with food. ● True ● False 5 Reversing a ceiling fan’s rotation direction in the winter will help…

NEARLY A DECADE after his child-hood cottage on Catchacoma Lake, Ont., was torn down, Rob Sandler decided he wanted to revive it: this time bigger, greener, and more welcoming. As a young adult, Rob, who lived in Toronto, and his then-girlfriend, Nyla Ahmad, who lived in Montreal, would often meet at Rob’s parents’ rustic, two-bedroom wooden cottage on weekends. The cottage offered a natural midway point, even in the winter when they’d have to hike through hip-deep snow to get to the cabin from the main road. As Rob’s family grew, they replaced the original cabin with a four-season cottage in 1995. Over the next 14 years, it became the place for siblings, spouses, grandchildren, and cousins. “The cottage was an institution,” says Rob. “A part of the family.” But…

DISTILLING THE FRAGRANCE of the north woods while holding fast to its needles through the festive season, the aromatic balsam fir is the go-to Christmas tree for millions of homes. The distinctly conical tops of the conifers dominate vast woodlands from the Maritimes to northern Alberta. In harsh northern climates, evergreens economize by keeping their waxy-coated foliage through winter, still photosynthesizing on days as cold as -6°C. Dwindling daylight and early frosts trigger cold acclimation, hardening needle cells and flooding them with sugary antifreeze. Raised blisters of thick, gooey, odoriferous resin beneath a fir’s thin bark physically and chemically deter trunk-boring insects. Balsam’s copious pitch also packs antibacterial and fungicidal compounds. A balsam’s pitch is flammable and a tree, if its thin bark is bathed in it, seldom survives fire.…

A true classic boat Your Sept/Oct ’25 cover photo of cottage life nostalgia is a lovely collage, but it’s missing a Canadian classic: the canoe. Thanks for sharing those memories. —Susan Lloyd, via email We can’t be-leaf it! We always look forward to receiving our copy of Cottage Life to find out what little gems the articles hold for us and how they give us a broader education of natural dynamics, both historical and current. In the Sept/Oct ’25 edition, we were drawn to the leaf schematics in “You Better Be-leaf It” (Waterfront). The illustrations are wonderful, by the way. However, we couldn’t help but notice that the leaf schematic of the beech and the largetooth aspen leaves are incorrectly presented. The beech leaf has been labelled as largetooth aspen,…

To make it: pour ¼ cup dark rum into a warm mug; add a twist of lemon and a cinnamon stick; top with hot apple cider (as desired) and a small pat of butter; stir with cinnamon stick. Enjoy! Adapted from “Ale, Ale, the Gang’s All Here,” from our Nov/Dec ‘90 issue.…

A GREEN, GOOPY algal bloom can bring summer fun at the cottage to a halt. Formed by an overgrowth of microbes called cyanobacteria, algal blooms are not just unsightly; they can also be dangerous. They can release toxins that are harmful to people, pets, and wildlife. But recent research out of the University of Waterloo suggests that cyanobacteria may have an enemy: viruses. “We always hear about viruses in the context of human illnesses,” says Jozef Nissimov, one of the researchers and an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo. But viruses infect every form of life—that includes microorganisms such as cyanobacteria, he explains. When a virus infects and then kills a single-celled organism like a cyanobacteria, the cell will undergo a process called lysis. The cell ruptures and bursts;…

NATHAN FERGUSON, a carpenter in Perth, Ont., who regularly works on cottages in the area, is heating things up with his saunas—except these aren’t your regular hot structures. They’re portable, built on the framework of old horse trailers. Step 1 in creating a sauna from an old horse trailer is cleaning out the “road apples” and hay. After removing any other surplus parts, he strips, sands, and rustproofs the metal frame as needed. He also wires the interior for lights, replaces the tires, paints the exterior, and, of course, lines the inside with cedar and installs a stove. Shaping the interior wood to fit a horse trailer is not a challenge for Nathan, a master woodworker (he jokes that choosing the exterior paint colour was harder), but it does require…

Q: I was out for a skate on the lake one weekend last winter when I came upon these markings. The distance between the prints is approximately three metres. They went on for kilometres, but eventually disappeared into the forest. Any idea what animal made them? Was it dragging something? Or was it maybe sliding across the lake?—Dan Bedard, Big Rideau Lake, Ont. A: Your second guess is correct. “The photo is definitely of slide marks made by an otter,” says Franco Mariotti, a biologist formerly with Science North in Sudbury, Ont. “They’re well known for sliding across frozen lakes.” And their slide marks can look like drag marks because of the way the otter moves across the snowy surface. It bounds, slides as far as it can go, gets…

Capturing an event that includes hundreds of people is a tough task for any photographer. But it was one that Montreal-based shooter Alexi Hobbs embraced for “In Cold Pursuit” (p. 44). “In a crowd that big, broad views don’t work as well; there’s too much visual information,” he says. “But there were so many characters. This guy was the real deal. He had this old-school sled that really stuck out, and he kept doing run after run. I really wanted a portrait of him. Finally, the moment showed up. He’d just done what seemed to be a good run, so I asked him if I could get a portrait and this smile and thumbs up were his gifts for my lens.”…