Still in a Daze at the Cottage

by Ross, James 1744-1827;

  Whatever the reason, I got things done. I spent the last weekend of summer replacing our leaky chimney pipe. Actually, I didn’t just replace it, I upgraded it, putting in insulated piping in the hope that we would be getting to the cottage more often in the colder months. I teetered around on the steep pitch of the cottage roof, fitting the chimney together and patching in the shingles while my helpful wife hollered up instructions from below. It was like having my own private talking instruction manual.

  The other major project that we tackled this year was the building of a post-and-beam gazebo on the rock knoll that sits high above our swim rock. It is something that I have wanted to do for several years, but have been putting off — I suppose knowing that if I bought the material and started building, there would be no turning back.

  My wife convinced me it was time — she has a wonderful way of doing that. So we worked steadily at it during each cottage visit. I cleared the tangle of spruce that had been taking over the rock, sprouting out of a thin layer of soil and moss. We built a level platform, and then added a solid beam structure and gabled roof. Everything just seemed to come together, solid, square, and beautiful. I felt just like that handyman who has all those cottage projects in each issue of Cottage Life. I mean, does the guy really have any opportunity to actually enjoy his place?

  Of course, our new gazebo is different things to different people. My children think that it is a neat new place to hide out when playing manhunt. Someone comes after you through the front door and you can vault out the back window. I just hope that they won’t become conditioned to that escape route, as I do plan to put in screens before next year’s bug season. My darling wife thinks it is a comfortable place for her to drink red wine in the evening. My dad will sit there reading during the day, to stay out of the hot sun, while not feeling left out of all the excitement and kid activity on swim rock. My father-in-law sees it as a place to sneak away to for his afternoon nap.

  My dogs think it is the best dog house I have ever made for them, a place where they can curl up on a cushioned loveseat overnight, or escape into during a rain shower. All signs indicate that they are taking advantage of the gazebo’s comforts, but their hearing is so acute that, when you try to sneak up to catch them in the place, you find them curled up on the hard rock knoll giving you a doleful expression meant to portray the pure misery they are in. “This is the life you make me lead,” their expression is meant to convey. “You sleep in your comfortable beds, while my mattress is a slab of granite.” When I point out the circular warm imprint in the cushions where they had, until recently, lay curled, and hold up the silver hairs that do not belong to Grandma, the dogs slink away knowing they’ve been busted.

  For me, the new space is an excellent writing studio. For much of the year, I send my kids off on the school bus and try to get a morning of peace and quiet in my office. My ideal work setting is at the cottage. The gazebo sits high above the lake and offers splendid views over the water to the northeast, to the contoured treed hills beyond. Here, distractions seem part of the inspiration rather than interruptions. I listen to the sound of the water, the call of the loon, the birdsong, and the laughter of the youngsters, and I write. Today I write about a new gazebo, a sheltered room with a view. And when I’m done writing, I may take advantage of my dog’s new bed, and curl up for an afternoon nap on the cushions.

  In the Eye of the Storm

  They could have named the tempest Sally or Susan or Silvia or Sophie, much more appropriate for Mother Nature in a rage. Rather, the autumn hurricane is named after my late belligerent brother. How appropriate. Perhaps he was not amused at the way I had treated his remains, dunking them in the deep waters of our lake. Hurricane Sandy … had he come back as a whirling tantrum just to haunt us?

  I guess we just like a good adventure. How else could I explain our timing, this year, for closing the cottage? It was the end of October, when the weather can be a little unpredictable at the best of times. However, what faced us this year wasn’t just an early snowfall. No, over the years we have often closed the place while battling an attack from Old Man Winter. This fall we had bettered that, and picked a day in the midst of this super storm. The raging hurricane that had been buffeting the eastern seaboard in full strength had now moved inland, and, although slightly more subdued, was still a fury as it set its sights on cottage country.

  My wife and I arrived at the lake in late afternoon. The sky was a leaden grey, filled with whirling black clouds that chased each other around in anger. The gale roared without pause, a tempest vicious and unrelenting. We looked over at our cottage from the mainland landing and wondered why we thought this was a good idea. Our island was just a little over a kilometre offshore, but today it seemed like it was a hundred miles away.

  We loaded our two dogs and limited supplies and pushed our boat out into the turbulent water. I had convinced my wife that we would be safe if we snuck over to our island hugging the west shoreline before slipping between the little islands west of ours, before risking the hundred-metre run across a narrow channel. During this brief crossing our runabout was tossed helter-skelter in the wind and chop. I managed to keep the bow facing into the waves, so other than a complete drenching, we made it to our dock upright and safe.

  My two huskies gave me a miserable glance as we crossed, ears pinned flat, a look both haggard and forlorn on their expressive faces, a look quite common to their breed when wet. My wife had the same unhappy look, one also not uncommon to wives when soaked to the skin. I turned the boat around at the dock, so that its bow faced the lake, and fastened the bumpers and tied extra lines fast to the cleats. Usually our dock was sheltered in our front bay, but not today — nowhere could one escape the wind.

  The waves crashed on shore in a roar, like the beating drums of fury. Foam covered the rocks. We ran our gear up the path to the cottage, bent forward against the squall. We were buffeted by horizontal pellets of rain, pushed back, soundless when we tried to speak to each other. I started a fire, and soon we were dry, cosy, and comfortable, looking out the big window at our lake, a lake more angry now than I could ever remember.

  After warming ourselves, we decided we had better get a start on our chores, so ventured out into the storm. The waves swept over our swim rock, so it ceased to exist, and the lake covered the bonfire pit on the point, scrubbing away the black ash from our summer fires. Water was thrown against the door of the bunkie. Ignoring the spray, we struggled about our business with heads down. I rushed in between swells and set up my rickety stepladder, then fought to fasten the shutters on the bunkhouse window while the wind blew the big wooden covers around like sails. It took all of our combined strength to grapple them into place. We had to yell to be heard.

  We hustled back to the cottage to warm ourselves, our coats flapping like kites, the wind at our backs blowing us along so we ran without effort. We worked our way through the closing checklist. My wife sent me up to the roof to finish shingling around our new stove pipe. I tied myself off and struggled against the wind. I felt like one of those sailors sent up to the crow’s nest by Captain Bligh during a fierce gale. I hung on for dear life, yelling down instructions to my wife on the measurements needed for the ice and water shield, and then the shingles. I struggled to fit them in place — though sometimes they slipped from my grasp and blew away like kites into the trees. My patient spouse and the two dogs darted off to retrieve them. It was slow going, but we managed to get things done.

  And then — as we worried about our return trip across the lake through the ugly waters — the wind seemed to calm. The tantrum was over, or perhaps the test. I smiled and thought of my older brother. He never took the easy way.

  A little hardship and a bit of adventure make for good cottage stories. “Remember when you took me up to close the cottage in the middle of Hurricane Sandy,” my wife will reminisce. “What were you thinking?”

  The Canoe

  There it was, hanging from the rafters at the back of
the garage. It was an old wood and canvas canoe. It was a vintage Minto, in fact, built in the same classic design as the Peterborough. I remember the day we picked it up. It was summer, 1973, and we were camping at Killbear Park north of Parry Sound. We rose early and Dad drove my brother and me across to Minden, where Sandy had one of Mae Minto’s canoes waiting for him. I remember when we first saw it. The canoe was beautiful — the wood glowed, and the green painted canvas gleamed. It was my older brother’s first major purchase in life; bought with money he had earned working on a dairy farm at Bar River.

  Seeing it hanging at my parents’ Muskoka River home stirs up a lot of emotions and buried feelings. It looks miserable, worn and lonely, and a long way from the water. I know my parents would never want to part with the canoe, which had belonged to their oldest son. I also know that they didn’t quite know what to do with it. I’m sure it stirred up difficult memories for them, of a life lost. Each tear of the canvas, broken rib, and split piece of planking were part of a life, part of who their son had been. With the canoe, he had challenged the wildest of rivers and explored the remotest lakes.

  I stroked its worn canvas sides, felt the punkie keel, and ran my eyes over the cracked ribs. I remembered its beauty, and its woeful condition at first made me sad. But were these scars or beauty marks? The canoe was worn and battered because we had made it so. My brother and I had shared many adventures in the old boat, I in the bow and he in the stern. We had pushed the canoe to its limits, and it, in turn, had pushed us to ours.

  We tackled nasty whitewater, even though the canoe’s delicate body would not permit mistakes. The canoe moved beautifully, resplendent in style and grace, yet also fearless when we called on it to be so. We crossed angry lakes and pulled hard against heavy waters. The canoe’s elegant shape glided smoothly through the water like a bird through air. So well- balanced was she that with a yolk and tumpline my brother would carry her across an arduous portage with hands free. We slept under it in the night, our heads sheltered by the canoe and our bodies protected in our canvas bedrolls.

  We went on family canoe trips, week-long routes that tested our strength and helped forge our character. These trips tested the family, and we passed. From my canoe I watched my sister paddle along in the bow of the Minto, with my brother leading the way. I know he was proud of her during those days, even though he was unlikely to say so. Still, he carried stories of those family trips through his life, and often recounted them to me with fondness.

  In 1974, my parents took the canoe out for an afternoon paddle, off to explore some new arm of a lake we were camping on. They rounded some small islands near the western end and saw one with a charming log cabin tucked back in the birches. Off the point they saw a “For Sale” sign fastened to a deadhead sticking from the water. The canoe had shown them what would be our family cottage, the one that I now own, and about which I write.

  Yes, this canoe has given us much — and I know it is now time to return the favour. I have resolved to get it back into vintage condition. I tell it so, and then, with one more stroke of the aged canvas, I depart. I make inquiries into the canoe’s restoration. I learn of another female canoe builder who followed in the footsteps of Mae Minto, one with a shop on the edge of the Seguin River. It just seems right that I bring the canoe to her.

  I am often haunted by the image of my older brother, paddling his magnificent canoe with his buckskin jacket and leather wide-brimmed hat. He handles the canoe like it is a part of him — man and canoe moving in graceful symmetry. Then, I think of the canoe hanging there, aged by use and now in its state of disrepair. I see the old cedar strip canoe as his abandoned friend, like the hopeful old arthritic dog watching keenly up the drive for the return of his master, so they can set out on one last adventure together.

  Unfortunately, I knew he wasn’t coming.

  Epilogue: It’s Closing Time

  It is closing time, last call on the cottage season. The back door is barred, the front one locked. The heavy metal screens are bolted on all the windows. The bunkie is boarded up. The hundred-pound propane tanks and the double regulator have been removed from the outside cabin wall and stored in the shed. The pump is disassembled, the fridge defrosted, emptied, and cleaned, the bedding and linen stored in mouse-tight cupboards, and the kayaks, canoes, and skis locked in the boathouse. We have completed the closing checklist and now wander down to the boat for the trip to shore, where we will load the boat and haul it home. Our cottage days are done for another year. We will tramp down the path to the dock, hop into the boat, say a quick goodbye, and run across the water to shore.

  I take a photo of the cabin from the dock before we pull away. It seems a hauntingly lonely shot. Dead leaves swirl in the breeze on a dreary, grey day. The cabin sits alone, void of life, with a couple of leafless birch trees in the foreground. Absent are the kids, active, animated, and laughing. Also missing are the dogs, who seem to always sneak into each summer photo, either in the background watching or sitting attentively on the cottage porch. There is usually an adult or two relaxing in the hewn-log rockers, reading a book or looking out over the lake. Not in this photo — the chairs are stored inside, the porch is empty.

  The lake is quiet now, cold and steely grey, empty except for the odd gull. The fishing season has ended. The loons have flown off. The geese have headed south. The frogs have dug themselves into the silty lake bottom. The leaves, finished with their brilliant autumn display of colour, have fallen to the ground, leaving the trees stark and bare. The cottage bird feeders hang empty — so the squirrels stare off after us with their tiny paws on their hips. “Where do you think you’re going?” they seem to be saying.

  The end of the Thanksgiving weekend marks the beginning of winter for me. The snow might be a month or two away, but the closing of the cottage means summer is over. It gets quiet here in cottage country. The cottagers have departed from the deserted lakes, the main streets are empty. Some will grumble that the lake has become too quiet and others will be glad that the cottage rush and chaos is over. The seasonal visitors have gone and Muskoka belongs to Muskoka again. Lakeside restaurants, snack shops, and ice cream kiosks are shuttered and empty. Resorts have closed for winter, and pampered gulls wonder what has happened.

  We also wonder where the summer has gone. Wasn’t it just last week that we had opened the cottage, and now we are closing it? The truth is that we have had a wonderful cottage season, and have spent more time at the lake than we have for many years. We enjoyed visits from family and friends. The cottage is a great place to get to know people better.

  And stories? — there have been a few. That’s what I love about cottage life; there are always stories to be told, adventures and new discoveries. There were summer stories about bats and vampires. There were tall tales about ghosts, bullfrogs, and dragonflies. My lunatic robin returned, and we became great friends. My oldest daughter’s crazy boyfriend visited, and I schemed how to get rid of him.

  There was drama on the lake, loons attacking mergansers and jet skiers attacking stand-up paddle boarders. There was a touch of erotica; I wrote Fifty Shades of Cottaging and somehow snuck it past my censors. It was a great summer weather-wise — warm, sunny, and dry. Autumn has followed with more of the same, and a splendid display of colour, reminding us that we live in a beautiful part of the world.

  The human landscape of our lake is slowly changing. Our resident old-timer, the longest residing cottager on the lake, has had to sell his place for health reasons. He dropped around to give me the news, and we sat on the porch for hours and talked. I was entranced as he shared reminiscences of the lake. I sat and listened, and when he boated off, I grabbed my notebook and jotted down stories like a thief. Before leaving, he presented me with a boat’s brass wheel. It had been the steering wheel from the old donkey-boat called the Alligator, the tug that had plied the lake in the early years of the last century. The boat organized felled trees from the surrounding hillsides into log booms to be sent down the lake
’s outlet river to the mills. The Alligator was owned by the man who originally built our cottage in the 1920s, the brass wheel manoeuvring the boat and corralling the logs into our little bay. The gathered timber was used in our cabin’s construction. I hung the wheel proudly on our cottage wall.

  After narrowly avoiding being squashed by the Sword of Damocles, our friends the Hobbses have put their cottage up for sale. They have been our island neighbours for thirty-two years. We will miss them. The resort on shore where I had my first summer job is also being sold. Only memories will remain. Yes, things are changing, but as they change, our cottage seems to remain a constant.

  Memories and a photograph — in spite of its somewhat melancholic feel, I do like the picture I took on departing, and have it blown up, framed, and hung on my office wall. When I am working at the computer, I look up at it and smile. While the image doesn’t tell the lively summer story of our cottage, I am happy that the cottage looks miserable. The cabin sits alone, quiet, waiting for spring. “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll be back soon enough.”

  We load our gear into the truck and, with one last look over at our suddenly lonely island, we are off. The cottage and island will sit silent for another winter, taking a rest after a summertime full of activity.

  It is closing time — everybody go home.

  Until we return!

  Copyright © James Ross, 2014

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