Cottage Life

LOVED IT LISTED IT BUILDING IT Watch Todd Talbot from Love It or List It Vancouver take on the build of a lifetime—his family’s Okanagan cabin—in the new series Todd Talbot Builds: The Passive House Project. Catch the premiere on October 8th at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the Cottage Life TV channel. IT’S SHOWTIME! The Fall Cottage Life Show is on from November 15 to 17 at the International Centre in Mississauga, Ont. See exclusive presentations from the CL team and meet cottage-country reptiles courtesy of Scales Nature Park. Head to shows.cottagelife.com to purchase tickets and use code FALL3 to save $3 on general admission. See you there! And the winners are… Thank you to everyone who submitted pictures to our 2024 Cottage Life Photo Contest. We can’t wait to…

IF YOU’RE A long-time reader of this magazine, you’re no doubt familiar with the byline “Max Burns.” He wrote for CL’s first issue in 1988 and then steadily throughout the next few decades. Outboards and outhouses, pumps and plumbing, septic systems and snowmobiles, floating and fixed docks: summer and winter, Max explained how things at the cottage worked, and how to fix them when they didn’t—always with a hefty dose of humour. He researched the hell out of every subject, digesting its minutiae and then turning it into an article that would allow even the most non-technical person (hello!) to feel confident she could stop a leak or winterize an outboard. Max was a wizard at explaining complicated stuff in a fun, understandable way. Each topic deserved the same exacting…

WHEN I WAS a kid, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be 30 or more people at our cottage to celebrate Thanksgiving. We ate, huddled elbow-to-elbow, among a labyrinth of rickety tables, carefully arranged on unreliable—at best!—folding chairs. The holiday wasn’t always comfortable, but it was always memorable. Some of my favourite memories, in fact. This had something to do with the food. Everyone brought their A-game dish. There were many delicious salads and sides, and enough potatoes that, laid end to end, they’d probably stretch all the way back to Ireland. There was pie galore, most often prepared by my grandmother, who was a pastry legend. As the mother of 11 children, she knew of cooking for a crowd. Amazingly, she only needed about one square foot of her…

Newsletter of note I loved reading the recent Weekender newsletter (“Life on an Island Cottage,” August ’24). We bought an island on Newboro Lake, Ont., over the phone during the pandemic. The people we bought it from never came back: there were clothes in the drawers that looked like they were from the 1960s and lots of other treasures. The basement was like a hardware store or lumber yard—it had everything you could possibly need! —Donna Purcell, Newboro Lake, Ont. Floating the boat The article “I’m Not a Cottage Owner, but I Have a Boat. Can I Legally Rent it Out?” (cottagelife.com) says that insurance is mandatory for any boat over 10 hp. I was unaware of this. Is it really true? —Tom Howell, via email Indeed it is! Here’s…

AT THE BEGINNING of 2022, Maduni and Nicholas de Freitas decided it was time to start cottage hunting. The Pickering, Ont.-based couple had always dreamed of owning a cottage by the water, and now they finally had the savings to make that dream a reality. With their two kids Ziya and Noah in tow, a budget of $800,000, and a list of features they’d need to qualify for their mortgage—a four-season property with central heating and a UV water-filtration system—the de Freitases began their search. Coming from a large family, Nicholas wanted at least three bedrooms to host aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Flat land would be easier for younger and older family members to navigate; a sandy beach was ideal for the kids. The de Freitases figured they’d need…

IN SHORT Dogs for 30! FOR AS LONG as he’s been alive, Dave Horn, 38, and his rather large extended family have gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents’ former cottage on Oak Lake, located just north of Havelock, Ont. The annual event, which draws upwards of 30 family members and friends, is dubbed “chili fest.” Dave says it was his grandparents who picked chili to feed the growing crowd, but these days, the meal often also includes hot dogs, corn bread, and chicken wings. As far as large outdoor cottage gatherings go, it’s about what you would expect: paper plates balanced on knees, plastic chairs crowded around the firepit, and at least one hot dog lost to the dirt or the dogs roving the property. And then, of course,…