A Kawartha Christmas Eve

At some point I looked up through the cold night to the sky above me, my breath hanging in the air like a mist, and realized that the stars were out. Not that I would be outside for very long because the temperature had plummeted once the sun went down, new snow caking everything around in a magnificent white layer still falling then from the sky. 

Tonight is Christmas eve. I’m here at the cabin with dad for the next couple of days to hunt near the Kawartha town of Kirkfield, home of the lift locks that live in the shadow of the more popular set in Peterborough. Otherwise, there’s really nothing else here. 

I’m not the only one out here tonight, either. To the north, there’s a pair of coyotes that have intermittently spoken up with a lonely song, not that intimidating pack howling that so many folks assume that coyotes do when they’ve killed something – that’s not why they do it at all – but more of a call and response tune by the sound of it. 

They’re not far away by my estimation. Maybe the next ranch over, now devoid of Charolais cattle, left to the song dogs. 

I love Christmas in the Kawarthas, and specifically at the cabin, something I’ve learned recently because I’ve never actually spent Christmas here until now, when at the last minute the opportunity arose to do so. It was, in being truthful, my dads’ idea, and a good idea it was. On the drive up, we pass over Mitchell Lake in Shalamar, and the dried lakebed of stumps stood down there behind the gas station, giving the impression of an environmental graveyard swallowed by seasonal water captured through dams. Traffic was fairly light, and we made what anyone would consider to be good time. 

Dads side of the family is from here, and we don’t come up here as much as I think we’d like to, but when we do, it’s a magical experience every single time. There’s something to being here during the holidays because there truly is no holiday bustle out in this neck of the woods. Here on the Carden Alvar, the only twinkling Christmas lights are strung above you at night, and they stay there all year long. The cedar rail fences beg to be decorated by those cold crispy snows that fall from storms pushed eastward by the fuel that Lake Simcoe gives, and the stillness lingers in our minds long after we’ve left this place. 

You know what, though? The entire Christmas vibe is entirely different here. When you can walk into the middle of a cedar thicket where the ground rises up just enough to support a few scraggly pines perfectly sized to be a Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree and drag it back, if you were so inclined, to sparsely decorate it in the warmth of wherever you found yourself spending the holidays. Frankly, as I stand here late in the night on Christmas eve, it becomes extremely difficult to imagine a better means to spend this night in particular. People travel all over the world for Christmas, and yet my perspective tells me that there is no better place to be than right here under these stars tonight. 

There’s a part of me that knows (and laughs at) the fact that a much younger version of me would have stood in a place like this on Christmas eve, staring up into the sky, watching for any sign of a sleigh being flown by eight tiny reindeer, giving suspicion to every shooting star and satellite. A younger version of myself would have teared up at the concept of what I’m experiencing right now, but an older version of me wouldn’t be able to fight tears either, should they show themselves out here this Christmas eve. 

Mike Fitzgerald is an avid outdoorsman and knowledgable homesteader who writes for multiple publications about living off the land. You can follow him on his adventures via instagram as @omnivore.culture