Closing Thoughts

It’s as though you can feel it in the air. A heightened awareness of the impending ending of something so special. The long wait. The winters’ sleep that a cottage undergoes when no one is around, and the lake is left to its own devices. 

For most of my life, I had no idea about the goings-on that occurred after we closed the family cottage for the season. Cottage season, if I’m being truthful, seemed sort of lame. After all, I was maybe ten, but I knew that there were twelve months in a year, and that the cottage was only used for roughly four of them, which seemed to my young brain as being ultra lame. I mean, just think of all the cool things that must happen while we’re away, right? 

When I was a kid, and we still had our cottage just a little bit north of the Kawartha’s, I remember my mom telling me that my grandmother would always leave our cottage unlocked and the cupboards stocked with nonperishable food items, just in case a hunter got lost during the autumn or winter and needed a place to hold out for the night. When I look back at this now, well into my thirties, it seems slightly ridiculous, but the cottage country mentality of helping your neighbour out, even if you didn’t know them, or in my grandmother’s case, weren’t even around when they needed help, was very prominent. 

But that’s what sort of twists me – we wouldn’t be there. At all. For months. 

Not during the moose rut, when the mostly elusive creatures tended to cave into reckless abandon and show up in places that they normally wouldn’t be. We wouldn’t be there for those quiet November nights when the woodstove burning split pieces of hardwood gave that glorious low hanging smoke that wafts into the surrounding woods, now bare and desolate. Nor would we be there for those delicious autumn colours that explode just after thanksgiving weekend, which is when the cottage was closed every year. 

That always seemed a major shame to me, but in it is the workings of nostalgia, as well as a tiny fleck of romance and poetic jest. Years later, long after the selling of the cottage and unfortunately, the eventual fire that burned the entire place down, I moved to house on the water where I would live all year long, where I learned exactly what went on when the seasonal folks left for good. 

And it was remarkable. 

First of all, those now vacant properties became an oasis for the local wildlife that, until then, had kept their distance. Turkey, grouse, white-tailed deer, fox and all manner of the like would take over, showing up mid day in the waning afternoon heat of October and November; reclaiming that which is, really, theirs in the first place – we just built on it. 

Massive migrations of waterfowl from the boreal forest show up around then, too. American Wigeon, Teal, and Northern Pintails at first, followed by common Goldeneye, Buffleheads, and three different species of Mergansers. Loon calls are replaced by the Eastern Coyote. 

But what struck me the most was the silence. The absolute stillness that buries itself into your bones. It’s a seasonal isolation that, unless you’re there, is missed. Maybe its because that sort of thing makes folks uncomfortable, or maybe it’s because cottaging has, over the years, has become an industry that not only caters to the comfort of those who take part (it wasn’t always that way, and I’m old enough to remember that now), but also has turned into something that is only of value when the weather is at its best. Not everyone is okay with being trapped indoors for three days during a November downpour that could, if things go right (or wrong, I suppose) turn into a blizzard. 

But frankly, and this is simply my opinion, that’s why you always pack a couple of good books, and maybe a couple extra tasty adult beverages for just such an occasion. It’s always better to be prepared, right? 

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