Here it is August 31st. I am sitting on the dock at our family cottage on Cache Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. Joe is doing some business travel for a couple of days, so it is just me and the two dogs. It was supposed to be brilliantly sunny today, but instead it is completely cloudy - but warm all the same. The lake is perfectly calm.
There are five other cottages in sight - at least as much in sight as any cottage in the Park is. Only one of them is occupied this late in the season. So - it is particularly quiet - and very peaceful. As heron might fly by into our small cove to do some fishing later on. And a couple of loons might cruise the bay, calling to one another if I am lucky. That solitary duck may return to the reeds by the shoreline of the cove that she or she seems to have adopted as a temporary feeding pace.
The water has warmed up since we arrived a week ago. It has gone from "bracing" to merely "brisk" on my personal scale of Cache Lake water temperature. However, it is likely to always be warm enough this year for a morning dip each day before breakfast.
Of course, I do make sure that there is a good fire going in the woodstove in the main cabin first. For me, the woodstove serves two important purposes. The first is to stand in front of for a few minutes after that morning swim. The second is to make toast using coat hangers that have been bent into the perfect shapre for making toast over the coals without burning you hand - an invention of my grandfather's decades ago.
The dogs love it here. They can wander freely without worry. There are no roads or cars to speak of as every cottage on Cache Lake is accessible only by boat - and every boat is either a canoe, cayak, or has a motor of less than 10 hp. The dogs love to lie on the dock and take a swim when it gets too hot. Millie merely steps into the shallows off the end of the dock and gently lowers herself only enought to wet her legs and belly. She's not much of a water dog.
Chloe loves to swim and reminds me of an otter. Unfortunately, she overdid it the first day and strained her tail. It was three more doays before she could sit down and before it did not hang limply behind her. She too seems content to splash in the shallows.
Daisy was our dog who loved to swim. She would go great distances for a stick or a frisbee. Last year she had to wear a doggie life preserver as she had lost so much muscle in her hindquarters. Unfortunately she died earlier this suimmer. One evening before we leave, Joe and I will toss some of her ashes over the water she so loved. There they will join those of her "cousins" Emma and Gracie - also expert golden lab swimmers.
Our cottage is really four separate buildings - and an outhouse. We have a propane refrigerator that is old enough to be quite tempermental at times (sometimes freezing everything and other times freezing nothing), a propane stove, and propane lights in the main cabin - which is really a kitchen, small dining/living area, and a woodstove. There is also a chest of drawers filled with decks of cards and numerous games that you would never play at home - except maybe at Christmas. Bananagrams has been a favorite the past two years. There have also been years of Scrabble, various forms of rummy, hearts, and back alley bridge. There are also bookshelves filled with summer reading books brought up, read, and left for others to enjoy.
We have three sleeping cabins named for their location - Upper, Lower, and Back. Attached to the back cabin is a shower - used daily and gratefully by some members of the extended family - and scoffed at by others.
We have a swimming dock, a boat dock, three canoes and two kayaks brought up and left by various family members, and the motor boat. We spend most of our dock time on the swimming dock where we get the afternoon sun and are treated many evenings to a magnificent sunset.
For me, our cottage is a sacred place. It has something to do with the peace that emanates from it - even when the winds blow and the storms come - the lake itself, the trees, the sameness year after year, the generations that have enjoyed it, the memories, the sense of a family place.
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