In mid-July I headed east to Ontario for the first time in nearly 20 years.
A bit of background: my parents are both from the Toronto area and when I was growing up we made frequent trips back to visit my grandmother and my uncle who lived there. The highlight of those summers in Ontario was always time spent at our family cottage. (In BC people are more likely to use the term “cabin” but in my mind a cabin is in the mountains, a cottage is on a lake.)
My grandparents first bought the cottage in the 1960s and my dad and my uncle spent their summers there as children. When my grandmother died my uncle winterized the cottage (cottage season is traditional May long weekend until Thanksgiving weekend in October) and later moved there as his year-end residence. He also added a new addition to the original structure.
The cottage was maybe my favourite place at a kid. I learned to swim in this lake. I have endless memories of sunny summer days. Swimming, canoeing, exploring. Watching CBC news on the old black and white television. Reading old mystery novels and comic books from the 1960s. Going for walks with my nana and playing board games as a family in the evenings. Feeding chipmunks on the front deck. Drinking orange crush or eating ice cream quickly because we didn’t have a proper freezer. My grandmother died right before I finished high school and as I moved on to university and into adulthood, I never went back.
My dad has been facing some health issues this year and while visiting the cottage and his brother have been a highlight for him every year, we knew that travelling on his own might be more complicated this time. So my brother and I looked at our schedules, talked to our spouses, and found a week in July where we could join him and both return to the family cottage.
We flew overnight from Vancouver to Toronto where my uncle picked us up and we drove the approximately two hours to the cottage. The very closest town is called Buckhorn but nobody’s heard of that. Bobcaygeon is next closest and some people have heard of that because of the Tragically Hip song. The cottage is located in the Kawartha Lakes region, cottage country somewhat less well known than the Muskokas.
Having a week away without my husband and kids (the longest I’d ever been apart from them) was strange and a little off-putting. It was a vacation but didn’t exactly feel like one without them. I’m not used to being able to read uninterrupted for hours or to make my own plate for dinner without ensuring that others are eating their vegetables! I read a lot – including an old Hercule Poirot short story collection in homage to my childhood memories. I swam every day, just like I did as a kid, and made use of my uncle’s canoe and kayak. My brother and I circumnavigated most of the lake, surprised to realize it wasn’t as big as we had thought.
We went for a walk on some newly developed trails by the Kawartha Land Trust and noticed the difference in landscape and plant life from our West Coast homes. Ontario has a lot of oaks and maples; most of the trees are deciduous while where I live is largely coniferous. We watched a jazz band perform by the lock in Buckhorn and poked around stores in Bobcaygeon. This region is part of the Trent-Severn Canal system and boats can travel from one lake to another through a series of locks.
We played Careers, an old board game that we hadn’t played since we were kids, and we went to Peterborough to watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We ate dinner at the Cody Inn, the restaurant we went to with Nana every summer. The week was a strange mix of new and old. I slept in my grandmother’s former room, something that never stopped feeling strange. The lake smelled exactly as I remembered but seemed shallower. It felt like my child and adult selves were meeting in a way they never quite had before.
The week had its ups and downs but it was a gift of time to spend in a place that has so much meaning for our family and in my own life. My brother and I agreed that an unexpected gift of the week was spending so much time together. Spending time just the two of us isn’t something we’ve done much as adults and I was really thankful to share this experience with him.
Karissa Reads Books 
Holy crap, your brother has a doppelganger in my town named Josh. I seriously thought I was going to open that photo and see, “this is me and my brother Josh!”
This sounds like it was a hard, meaningful vacation.
Whoa, that’s funny! Is Josh a nice guy? Because my brother’s really great and I’d hate to find out someone with his face is out there being an asshole!
I’m glad I went and I’m glad it’s over. Hard and meaningful are good descriptors.
He is SUPER nice! I almost got in a car accident once, and I was so frightened that I called him, because he lived nearby, and he let me come over and hug his dog.
That is super nice! And sounds like something my brother would do for a friend. (Though he wouldn’t have a dog.)
Your family knew this was a special place and it was just the right time. You needed the time to reflect and relive special moments with your brother, uncle and dad. That is awesome! What was the food like at Cody Inn? What did you eat?
When I was a kid Cody Inn was more like classic pub food but several years ago it changed over with new owners and now it is actually Chinese food. So we shared several dishes as a table!