WHEN WE FIRST went looking for our cottage on Georgian Bay, my husband, Anton, and I asked a cousin and veteran cottager if she had any advice. What questions should we ask of the current owners? What should we look for when we visit the property? We

THE ROMANS DEVELOP MUSTARD—BY COMBINING CRUSHED MUSTARD SEEDS WITH UNFERMENTED GRAPE JUICE—TO EAT WITH BOAR. (THEY WANTED TO DISGUISE THE PORKY TASTE.) ■

LAST YEAR, THREE of my balsam fir trees looked awful—brown needles, tunnels in the bark, piles of sawdust near the roots. A local arborist identified a sawyer longhorn beetle infestation. Unless we cut down the trees—which were dead—the beetles could

After we posted this shot on Instagram, you blew up the comments with captions. They were funny… …but mostly they were revealing. Based on the responses: ■

YOU EXPECT TO find some flotsam in the spring, especially on a lake as big as Panache—my lake—after a freshet as intense as the one we got in 2023. But generally, it appears in a prosaic form: bleach bottles, dog toys, plastic drums sprung from the u

WHILE PEOPLE RARELY romanticize studio apartments, a one-room cabin in the woods has an entirely different magic. Sure, it’s important to have a place to hide out when it’s raining or a spot where you can escape from your family for a while, but when

ONE OF CANADA’S few floating coffee roasteries means that cottagers on Lake of the Woods can get their caffeine fix in a decidedly “living the lake life” way. Jeremy Brown had been roasting coffee in his garage as a hobby for a few years when he acqu

What a wonderful surprise and honour to see our family-owned marina make the top five marinas listed in Cottage Life’s “Best of All Things Cottage Country” (Mar/Apr ’24). We’ve been the owners of Mountain Trout House Marina for almost three years now

The one who fell in love at first sight The long-distance lovers The enduring love The love triangle The ones holding on to first love Sandy Hunter Richard & Heather Jones Kristin Cripps Justin & Ali Bellon Jacob & Ben Morris Writer Andrea Yu These c

1.1 Another name for a lynx or a bobcat, both known for their signature shrill shrieks 1.2 A big, wild, rock-’n’-rollin’ cat who you wouldn’t want to invite to karaoke Anyone else hear that screech cat last night? It was so loud I thought it was gonn

THE NEW, 65,000-sq.-ft. home of the Canadian Canoe Museum, opening May 11 in Peterborough, Ont., has more room to display the artifacts, better HVAC to preserve them, and a café. But the most exciting part to its executive director is something any c

You’ve read about them: the four species of non-native carp that are threatening our lakes are well-known for their crimes—among those, stealing (others’ food sources) and mass murder (of native species). But could you recognize them? Don’t let these

BACK IN THE day, when CL was still a small, family-run company with an office featuring desks made from computer boxes and old plywood, we had an annual retreat at the cottage of our founders, Al Zikovitz and Wendela Roberts. “The Cottage Life Weeken

To maintain a healthy cottage, you need to look beyond the four walls. How to check your favourite trees for common signs of stress and disease. ■

Q: We have a man-made frog pond at our cottage, which has been home to many frogs since we bought our place in 2007. This year, we arrived in the spring to find the water murky, with green slime floating on top. There are no frogs to be found. We hav

LAST SUMMER, AT the start of Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, our insurance provider informed us that they wouldn’t be renewing the coverage for our home in Atlin, B.C., a small, rural town and cottage country to neighbouring Whitehorse. We’

A sunny day in May is ideal for spying a smiling Blanding’s turtle catching rays atop a log or a muskrat lodge in Ontario, western Quebec, or southern Nova Scotia. Solar charging is vital in the weeks after ice-out for the cold-blooded, high-domed re

PAINTING A CONCRETE or brick exterior wall starts with some quiet meditation. Take a deep, cleansing breath and ask yourself, “Do I really need to paint it at all?” Unpainted masonry needs very little maintenance, while slapping on the wrong paint ad

IT’S HIGH NOON on a nearly cloudless August day, and a father and son are on their PWC, making their way through a lush, narrow inlet at the edge of Baptiste Lake, near Bancroft, Ont. They slow down as they pass the marina and raise their hands to bl

In case you missed the news on cottagelife.com, the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations’ long-time executive director, Terry Rees, stepped down this spring. The Lake Kasshabog cottager had been head of the organization for 20 years; he’d al

Report it. Record the location and take photos if you can. Visit invasivespeciescentre.ca for reporting details by province and for additional carp ID info.

TO HUMANS IT’S a culvert. But for beavers living near Todd Weiler’s Emsdale, Ont., driveway, it’s a poorly built dam with an 18" hole, just begging to be plugged with mud and sticks. That’s why, on and off for almost two decades, when Todd cleared hi

“WE’RE AT 140 feet,” the well driller shouted over the rumbling of the drill. Excitement had turned to dread as we’d approached that magic number, the number that my husband, Robin, and I had agreed on as our limit to how deep we would dig searching

ADMIT IT, COTTAGERS. Your breakfasts are boring. If you’re making bacon and eggs every morning, it’s not a treat anymore; it’s a routine. Every weekend only has two breakfasts; don’t miss an opportunity to make them special. There’s a very cottagey s