Cottage Life

s’more stuff

Ready, set, build This one’s for you, all you people who have emailed us over the years asking for plans from a long-forgotten issue. Well, delete that saved draft—Cottage Life Project Plans are now available for purchase online. You can find some of our most popular builds, including the outhouse, the outdoor shower, the Muskoka chair, and the bee box. Plus, we’re uploading new plans every month, so keep checking back as you gear up for next season. Visit cottagelife.com/projectplans. Add this to your watch list It’s only natural to wonder how people can survive in the coldest and most remote regions of northern Canada. Good news—you can catch up on episodes of Life Below Zero Canada, now streaming on the Apple TV+ app. Start your free trial today. The Cottage Life show goes…

contributors

Michelle da Silva While growing up in Vancouver, Michelle heard about cottages and cabins, but it took a move to Toronto and the pandemic to finally get her to one. The journalist rented a cottage for a few days last summer. “It was on a small lake and there was a canoe and a fire pit,” she says. “I felt like I had a full Ontario cottage experience.” Michelle says she drew on this vacation for her interview with interior designers Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan, “All the World's a Page” (p. 47). “Cottaging gave me a new perspective into the design world.” You can find more of her work in Xtra Magazine, as well as Early Bird Special, a radio show she hosts. Derek Shapton Photographer and long-time contributor Derek Shapton usually…

can’t go south? go north instead

In my youth, a winter visit to the cottage was an infrequent adventure. Our place was at the end of a mile-long road that in those days saw no plow. The snow—there was more of it then, right?—came early and stayed late. Visiting meant walking through at least knee-deep drifts. And, since the place wasn’t winterized, we never stayed long. Just a look around, really, before we trudged out again, fleeing to my grandparents’ farm on the other side of the lake. At the farm, there was always a roaring woodstove and always some sort of delicious pastry on its way out of the oven. Those winter days in the country offered distinct physical sensations that I’ve never had in any other place. Farm weekends were typically shared with my many…

your letters

Speak now, or hold your peace We want to know if Zimmer crashed our wedding (“Married…With Hassles,” In Like Zim, Oct ’20). We don’t remember inviting him, but here are the similarities: we were married in November, at a reception hall, had a six-course meal, served flaming sambuca, and definitely danced the chicken dance. Uncanny!—mark and marilyn hiseler, via email This summer, the woman who used to help us run a kids’ camp at the cottage held her wedding at the lake. Sadly, not all family could attend due to COVID-19. As the groom’s family is from Newfoundland, they brought a trailer in order to social distance, and we made our kid’s cottage available for other guests. The bride’s brother is a chef, and he made a multi-course meal for the guests. Grandmother…

the men, the legend

From their perch high up on the cottage wall, our old snowshoes gaze longingly out over the snowy, frozen bay. Golden wood shining in the late-afternoon sun, those beavertail beauties seem to have resigned themselves to their place on the antique wall of shame, nestled comfortably between a miniature high-wheel bicycle, rusted sickle, and the ubiquitous cross-cut saw. And while they do add an air of whimsy to the ancient assembly, there was, apparently, a time when the snowshoes took their first, and last, voyage. As the story goes (passed from father to son in hushed tones), it happened in the bitter month of a faraway February. Confined to the cottage by howling winds and nose-deep snowdrifts, my dad and his brother-in-law Bob passed the day comfortably in the company of…

some wicket good fun

Nothing screams “winter at the lake” like a rousing match of cricket. At least, it does if you’re the Stone family, cottagers on Livingstone Lake, Ont. The gang of five is active all year long at the cottage, says Tim Stone, a gym teacher and cricket coach. In winter, that means a lot of skating or shinny on the ice. “But I had moved up some old cricket equipment—stored in my parents’ basement—with the intention of using it for summer matches on the back lawn,” he says. “I never anticipated using it during the winter.” Well, this is Canada. Sometimes the weather forces a person to think outside the rink. Last Family Day weekend was a snowy one, says David, Tim’s father. “After raking all the cottage roofs and shovelling the decks…