# Cottage Life - Exposed



## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

A cursory search on cmf reveals that the topic of cottages (or camps, depending on locale) has come up numerous times on the forum over the years. There have been threads on the pros and cons of buying and owning, inheritance issues, tax/capital gains issues; cottages as an investment, as rental vehicles & c.

Although born in Vancouver, I grew up in Ontario, where my grandparents first built a cottage ca. 1925.

Perhaps, in light of what I have now learned, I should be slow to admit that our whole family was into the cottage scene in Ontario and it was a significant part of life when I was a kid and beyond. My take on it (childlike I now see in retrospect) was that cottaging was about having a place away from the city (for us, Toronto). It was a place where one could be on a lake, with fishing, swimming, rowboats, canoes and, yes, powerboats. We had lake views absent from our home in Toronto. We had more land around us, it was more private and serene and, in general, more of “nature”. There was no traffic. There was no light or other pollution and we would lie on the dock and look up at the night sky and it seemed that the stars were so close and bright you could touch them. We considered it high adventure (and very grown up) to be permitted to paddle to a small, uninhabited island within sight of the cottage, to build a campfire and sleep out overnight. Lying in bed at night one could hear the haunting call of loons and the plaintive calls of whip-poor-wills. Not many of either of those in Toronto.

I just totally loved the cottage experience. To this day, I have a treasure trove of rich memories of those days. Although I have lived in some of the biggest cities on the planet, I have never been a city boy at heart. I can recall almost too clearly how in mid-August each year we would hear on the radio that the Canadian National Exhibition was poised to open. Oh, for joy! To me, that was in no way something to be celebrated. It sounded the death knell of summer at the lake and time to return grudgingly to the city and school. Ugh. 

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have very recently come to discover what the cottage experience was _really_ all about. Boy, did I have it wrong. The unvarnished truth has been revealed in a pithy essay entitled “Roughing it in Comfort”: Family Cottaging and Consumer Culture in Postwar Ontario.

You may see for yourself, here:

http://www.academia.edu/3615159/_Ro...ging_and_Consumer_Culture_in_Postwar_Ontario_

The learned author concludes thus:

Ontario’s postwar cottaging experience was born, in part, out of along-standing anti-modernist tradition that called into question the materialism and superﬁciality of modern urban society. As a form of recreation that enabled people to spend time in rustic cabins that lacked the comforts and services associated with postwar mass consumption, cottaging provided an alternative to the dominant culture of conformity and acquisitiveness. In time, however, the notion that cottaging was a remedy for the ills of consumer culture lost much of its credibility. As new products appeared on the market and as owners enlarged and renovated their summer homes, cottaging gradually became married to consumption. With the introduction of modern utilities, new tools and methods replaced the old, and with the advent of new technology, cottage life became ﬁlled with recreational equipment and countless other consumer goods. Increasingly, historian Robert Rutherdale has quipped, ‘‘Getting away from it all ... seemed to mean bringing it all with you.”…
Cottagers’ honest but sometimes abortive efforts to lead the simple life exemplify the ambivalence that postwar consumer culture generated among ordinary Canadians. In seeking escape from modern urban society, in embracing traditional tools and methods, and in resisting the spread of modern goods and services, cottagers demonstrated that postwar consumer culture, though promising personal fulﬁlment, was incapable of meeting certain needs and desires. Likewise, by improving their summer homes, by gradually adopting new technologies, and by embracing some products even as they scorned others, cottagers revealed their captivation with the very forces that made them so uneasy.
​
I had no idea. Would that my parents were still here. I am sure that under close questioning they would be compelled to reveal to me what this essay has revealed. Cottaging was not about nature and lakes and rivers and experiences one could not have in the city. It was all about taking flight from “materialism and superﬁciality of modern urban society”. I suppose that modern-day Vancouverites do the same thing by weekending at Main and Hastings. No need for a cottage. 

To their prodigious credit, my parents succeeded admirably in sheltering us kids from the depressing truth, their angst and what must have been crushing disappointment when confronted with their failure to be free of “the very forces that made them so uneasy.” As a kid, I never cottoned on to the fact that they were so uneasy and, apparently, leading lives of quiet desperation. Meanwhile, us kids were blissfully unaware (or maybe I was the only one so afflicted) of the painful reality of the situation. We embraced cottage life in unbridled fashion, living each day on the waters and in the woods and meadows as though simply being there and in the moment had some special quality. Such be the foolishness of youth, I suppose.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

Mukhang pera said:


> Such be the foolishness of youth, I suppose.


A good read, thanks for taking the time to write it up...I think most of us in retirement find that trying to regain "the foolishness of youth" is a worthy goal.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I think the author thinks too much.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

Mukhang pera said:


> I had no idea. Would that my parents were still here. I am sure that under close questioning they would be compelled to reveal to me what this essay has revealed. Cottaging was not about nature and lakes and rivers and experiences one could not have in the city. It was all about taking flight from “materialism and superﬁciality of modern urban society”.


I suspect your parents would reveal no such thing as you suggest. 

Myself, I purchased a cottage not long after I was married, as I loved to get away from my work in a big city and enjoy nature and fishing and boating on a lake. I held onto the cottage as my kids were born and they enjoyed their youth at the cottage, just as you did. I taught them many things at that cottage. They often comment on it with great joy as they are now in their fourties.

I sold the cottage once my kids were grown and couldn't accompany me any more on weekends there. I found the maintenance a burden as I got older and so I sold it. 

I can say without question, owning that cottage had little to do with taking flight from “materialism and superﬁciality of modern urban society”. It was, as you said, "about nature and lakes and rivers and experiences one could not have in the city".

ltr


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## heyjude (May 16, 2009)

Great essay, MP! 

As for the scholarly article (which I scanned but did not read in full), academics have to justify their existence. Publish or perish!


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## Userkare (Nov 17, 2014)

Growing up in NYC, I spent most of my summers at my uncle's house on a lake in NJ in the mountainous region in the NW part of the state. My cousin and I would hike in the woods, or canoe on the lake. I used to love going out in the early morning mist on the still lake; it was like canoeing on a cloud. We had lots of friends among the locals; they were a lot more friendly than the city kids. Little did I know that I wasn't just enjoying the fresh air and getting great exercise; that there was some socio-economic motivation. 

When I moved to Toronto, some friends had cottages north of the city. Sometimes, I'd be invited, but I didn't enjoy going there as much as I did going to NJ as a kid. For one thing, on Friday evening we sat in bumper to bumper traffic on Hwy 11/400 for hours. The lakes were filled with idiots driving boats recklessly at great speed with skiers in tow; no canoeing in the mist if you valued your life. At night there was so much noise from all the 'partying' around that you couldn't hear nature if you tried. 

Come Sunday night, the same people who you encountered in Friday evening traffic were now bumper to bumper headed back south. Somehow, the whole cottage experience seemed a waste to me.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Tonite is "Wave-Off" on Hornby Island. All the locals gather at the Pub (by the ferry dock) and celebrate. The last ferry to leave does a few piroettes, fires its water cannon and toots its whistle. Everyone on the porch of the pub goes nuts. Fun time.

(a bit hypocritical though, since our island wouldn't thrive without the summer crowds)


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

growing up in NL...."cottages", to us, were the quaint little house people lived in in fairy tales.
anyone around here had a "cabin", or "da shack" -not a "cottage" (although "cottage" has gradually slipped in to the local lexicon more & more) Going "up to da shack for da weekend" was pretty much roughing it. While you guys were hoping to open up your swimming pools on the 24th weekend, aka May 2-4 weekend, we would hope that Mother Nature would co-operate & we wouldn't wake up with snow on the ground that weekend. We were disappointed more often than not....


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Closest we got to cottaging was the deer camp (on a small river) - outhouse, coleman lamp and woodstove.
In season the blackflies, mosquitoes, deer&horse flies had an agreement to leave enough of us for the next visit.
Fishin, huntin, ww2 Willys, and skidoo. Loved it.


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## cedebe (Feb 1, 2012)

like_to_retire said:


> <snip>
> 
> I can say without question, owning that cottage had little to do with taking flight from “materialism and superﬁciality of modern urban society”. It was, as you said, "about nature and lakes and rivers and experiences one could not have in the city".
> 
> ltr


YMMV, apparently, but I see spending time in nature as the ultimate with regards to fleeing from all that is superficial in modern urban society. People may have modern conveniences like indoor plumbing while out in the bush, but that doesn't detract from the overall experience of being in a natural setting as opposed to being surrounded by monuments to capitalism...


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

Thank you to those who have replied to my (partly) tongue-in-cheek prose.

Userkare, your post raises the point that the cottage life that some here recall, that which existed in the 50s and 60s, has all but disappeared. At least, one is forced to go much further afield to find anything similar.

I grew up in that era of cottages when cottage country was less crowded and, at least for us kids, commuting and dealing with traffic was not an issue. We departed the city with our moms the day after school let out and stayed at the cottage until Labour Day. Dads came up on weekends and for a 2 or 3-week stretch sometime in the summer. in our case, different family members had cottages in different locations and we would do a certain amount of switching venues, for variety. 

Two places to which I had close connection as a kid were Lake Kawagama (a.k.a. Hollow Lake), near Dorset, and Lake Temagami. Back in the day, there was but one road into Kawagama and there it ended, right where it reached the lake (at Mountain Trout House). Getting to the cottage then required one to take to one's own boat. In the years I went there, I doubt there were more than 20 cottages on the lake. And it was a good size lake, about 10 miles long, with many bays, islands, etc. It was quite possible to go out on the lake and not see anyone else all day. I know that has changed. Now a road encircles the lake and there are many cottages. In fact, there are now many year-round homes. The shoreline has been chopped up into small lots and the lake is much busier. I only know this from google. I have not been there in years. I doubt the lake trout fishing is what it was. Back then, the limit was 5 per day, 10 in possession and, if you knew the lake at all, there was something radically wrong if you could not limit out in a day's fishing. Speckled trout were there too, but you had to know where to look (such as at the end of Minden Bay).

Temagami, much larger, and more remote, offered even more solitude. It involved for us a drive on the long Temagami copper mine road that opened around 1955, then by boat. Again, I have not been there for a long time, but I think that lake remains more pristine. It lies within the Temagami Forest Reserve, which restricts development to the lake's 1250 or so islands. I used to know some good pickerel spots up the northwest arm. Not so sure about now. 

There's a TV series I have seen a few times of late, on HGTV, called "Lakefront Bargain Hunt" and there are other similar programs broadcast from time to time. They cover a goodly amount of "cottage country" across both Canada and the U.S. A lot of it looks like the kind of place you have mentioned. Speedboats and "personal water craft" (gotta' love those) roaring around, no doubt skippered by the three sheets to the wind crowd, who also no doubt can be heard partying across the lake into the wee hours. I will say that the cottage life depicted in some of those episodes is not something that would appeal to be. Cottages perched cheek-by-jowl on 50-foot city-type lots, each with its own dock projecting into a crowded waterway. 

Jargey, your mention of the May 24 weekend strikes a chord. That was often a target date for opening up the cottage. The hope would be to arrive at the lake to find that nature had cooperated and the ice had gone out. Often some would be found lingering in the bottom of some bays. Our 14-foot Peterborough cedar strip boat ("Aqua Flyer", from Curry Bulmer Marine in Toronto) with its Johnson Sea Horse 18, was not not well suited for use as an icebreaker.


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> Closest we got to cottaging was the deer camp (on a small river) - outhouse, coleman lamp and woodstove.
> In season the blackflies, mosquitoes, deer&horse flies had an agreement to leave enough of us for the next visit.
> Fishin, huntin, ww2 Willys, and skidoo. Loved it.


Reminiscent of a duck and goose hunting camp we had on land rented from a farmer on Wolfe Island. Loved it too. But we went there in the fall. No bugs:joyous:


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

What do you expect... it seems like we need a "deeper" explanation for everything anyone does. I wonder if the writer is a psychologist. 

Don't worry though, neuroscience promises to explain not just why we did something, but even predict what we'll do next...


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I am not sure I even understand the rant of the OP or the article but for me my cottage is where my life begins. I have always loved camping and cottaging when I was young and it did not change as I got older.

I have noticed that quite a few of the cottages have changed over the years. What use to be a one or two bedroom piece of wood on the water has now become a well landscaped 5 bedroom, multi-floor lake front mansion, with all the electronic amenities. 

I think this reflects more on the change in the value of the land then a major change in peoples tastes. That mansion on the lake, could probably have been bought for a couple thousand dollars in the 60s, when it was just a small cabin made of wood. But now they wouldn't sell you the dock for such a small sum. If a person has the wherewithal to purchase a multi-million dollar property, they are probably going to want build a new structure that better reflects the value of the land. Just as they have been doing in central Toronto with those million dollar bungalows. They rarely stay as the same old bungalow after someone pays over a million dollars for it. Cottages are the same. Also some people need to sell their permanent home in order to afford them so they need to build a more permanent type home on the lake.

Anyway, I don't even value my cottage in my net worth statement, since I will always own one while I am alive and after I am dead my net worth will have little value to me.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

With so much crown land around why own a cottage. Just buy an RV or boat and stay for free.

Personally I am tired of all that. I now want a condo on the main beach with lots of activities around.


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