Cottages

One of the earlier memories I have is my grandpa's camp, located on an island on Lake of the Woods. It was rustic in the truest sense of the word, very much a cabin, in the middle of nowhere, without even an outhouse; you picked your spot in the bush, toilet paper under your arm. I remember driving the little aluminum fishing boat back to the landing - I was 4 - steering a little 9.5 hp Evinrude back to shore. I remember my grandmother's cottage, on Georgian Bay, and playing in the water with my battery-powered toy submarine, swimming out what seemed like miles only to find another sandbar on which to stand.

Seems to me, these days, with more and more cottages becoming monster homes on lakes, the idea of a cottage has been subverted by the vacation property of the wealthy. Cottages for me always held the allure of roughing it, of giving up some creature comforts of home in order to gain the beauty, tranquillity, and quiet of nature. While none of the cottages I ever stayed in were literal shacks, some were pretty close; the whole point was the water, the sun, the dock, and the fresh air. The idea of a cottage still holds memories of pioneers, of pushing the limits of where we are and where we are going. They are about being of nature, and not in nature. Communing. Like hippies.

Vacation properties, on the other hand, compete with nature. The grandeur and spectacle of human invention reaching vainly for the bar nature has set. They come off tacky and sad, like 65 year old actors who get the implants and tucks, trying to swim against the current instead of going with it. Nature, as seen through the windows of these buildings, becomes two-dimensional, another framed piece of art on the wall. A fence of materialism thrown up to keep nature at a distance, to keep creature comforts within. Instead of escaping the city, or at least the day to day grind that is centred in the home, these places try to bring exactly those things to a place that should be used to bring new vistas and perspectives.
Which is not to say a cottage, at least the imaginary, future cottage I'm going to own, can't be comfortable, or full of beautiful things, or feel like home away from home. What is going to be most important at my future cottage, however, is the place: the lake, the curve of the land, the trees, and the night-time sky, and the distance it brings from the business of life. Picture me in a comic-book frame, as a comic-book character, where the drawing of me is home, and the cottage is the word-bubble, empty, and always waiting to be filled with something new.
We were at our friend's cottage recently - a big thanks shout-out for that invite - and I love it there: it embodies all of what is most important in a cottage. The pictures are from that weekend.