Spring Opening
By Mike Fitzgerald
It arrives in the headlights like an old friend sometime in the evening after the pavement turned to loose gravel before giving way to the rough dirt track leading to the shores of the lake and a cottage cloaked in a lonely darkness since October.
Stepping from the car, I immediately went to the shore where it became evident by the complete lack of lights, save for a big bright crescent moon, that we were the only people here on this chilly Thursday night at the beginning of May. Opening the door to the cottage, a blast of cold air hits our faces and burns a twinge in our lungs, so we leave the front door open to let it out, while fetching some wood from the shed to get the wood stove going in the living room.
It’ll be a cold sleep tonight when we retire, with track pants and hoodies under stale comforters, but there’s nary a soul here that would have it any other way, because this is part of what opening the cottage is all about.
I’d offered my services to my friend and coworker, Hugo, the previous autumn when he mentioned he had to close his cottage somewhere near Chemong Lake on his own, and when all was said and done, he asked if I’d be interested in coming back in late April or early May to go through it all again, with the prospect of some fishing thrown in, and I couldn’t really say no.
Though this wasn’t my cottage, I was more than familiar with the ins and outs of opening and closing cottages. This rustic piece of cottage country artwork was an evergreen painted masterpiece, half on stilts overtop of a sloping rocky Canadian shield shoreline, neighbours far enough away to have some privacy, but close enough that you could hear the echoes of laughter around evening bonfires while drinks flowed, and marshmallows roasted.
Truthfully, it has always felt like an important tradition to be apart of. There is something so special about being the first ones to get to the cottage – any cottage – and the last ones to leave. During the winter, I used to wonder what the cottage might bear witness to in our absence back when I was a kid, and not being there made me feel a certain level of homesickness.
In any regard, as the glow of the fire in the woodstove illuminates the living room, we go about the necessary tasks at hand while the place heats up. Wood is brought in, mouse traps are checked, the shed is unlocked, and a thorough assessment of the property, even though it’s pitch black out, is done.
Just shy of blackfly season, yet right on time for the spring peepers, and still the threat of a late season snowfall is a real possibility everyone hopes doesn’t become reality. We’re far from the first swim of the season, but early enough that the loons haven’t returned yet. It’s about as desolate here on a usually busy lake when the lift locks open and the rest of the crowd returns to enjoy their slices of seasonal heaven.
