Cottage Daze

by James Ross

  I find Boomer sleeping on the deck, with an air of innocence. The truth being, he had nothing left to chew. Timba sits beside him looking mortified. When I throw her a questioning look, she shakes her head and lifts a paw, pointing it at the snoozing pup.

  “Boomer!” I yell angrily. He bounds to his feet with tail wagging wildly, jumps up on me and starts licking my face. He seems to be telling me, “I love this place!”

  Lost in Translation

  Grandma and six-year-old Jenna saw the one-legged duck coming out of the bay. It hopped quite ably up onto the shore and grazed in the long grass that fringed the water. It had learned to lean over to the right, to balance itself and compensate for the loss of the left leg.

  How it lost its appendage, we do not know. The children would later guess at a snapping turtle, a pike, or perhaps a crazed boater. Maybe it was a dog. The duck might have lost it as a duckling. He might have been born with only one leg. We can only guess. The reality was that the whole leg was missing, but he had learned to cope. Not just to cope, but to manoeuvre himself around on the grass with a dexterity that was very impressive.

  Grandma had not seen this duck before, so she sent Jenna scurrying up to the cottage to fetch Grandpa, to tell him to come down and see.

  “Is Grandpa coming?” asked Grandma, when the youngster returned.

  “No, he’s already seen it,” answered Jenna, sitting herself back down.

  “Really? He never told me,” said Grandma, a little miffed.

  There’s a certain simplicity to life at the cottage.

  “He said he saw it yesterday, he saw the leg fall off in the water.”

  Jenna was quite matter-of-fact about what Grandpa had seen. Grandma was a little harder to convince. “What? Grandpa said that? He saw the duck’s leg fall off?” Jenna smiled and nodded; Grandma looked up towards the cottage in disbelief.

  “He said he saw the leg fall right off when the water was high — he knows where he can find it,” stated young Jenna. Grandma envisioned herself packing the thin duck leg in a bag of ice and rushing off with the leg and bird to the nearest hospital to have it sewn back on.

  Completely ambivalent that he was at the centre of what might become a domestic dispute, the one-legged duck hopped gamely back down into the water and floated gracefully away, through the reeds and out of sight.

  Grandpa came down with a tray, some sandwiches, and drinks. Now, he has been married to Grandma for fifty years and can easily recognize the signs of danger. He was in trouble, but he had no idea why. So he did what brave men everywhere do when faced with the wrath of their spouses: he pleaded innocence even before being accused.

  “What? I didn’t do anything,” he said — hands out to his sides, palms upward.

  “You never told me you saw a one-legged duck,” chastised Grandma. Grandpa looked around the shore and out in the bay. “Well, he’s gone now! And why did you tell Jenna you saw its leg drop off?”

  “I said no such thing,” harrumphed Grandpa.

  “You said that, Grandpa,” accused the innocent young girl, sidling up to Grandma, knowing at a young age that women should stick together. “You said you saw the leg fall right off the duck.”

  Grandpa stood open-mouthed, speechless. He looked at Jenna, and then at Grandma — both had their arms crossed and were glaring at him. Then he thought of something, and he smiled; all was becoming clear. This was all about a six-year-old’s pronunciation, and the hearing of a grandparent.

  “The dock — I saw the pin drop out of the dock.” The ramp from shore to their floating dock sat at a peculiar angle. The water level had risen the day before, lifting the dock and causing the pin to fall off into the shallow waters. “I thought Jenna was telling me about the dock — I saw the leg fall off the dock.”

  Grandpa has yet to see the amazing one-legged duck … the little troublemaker.

  The Handyman

  I’m not a handyman. I admit it. Even my kids recognize this. When a cottage project comes along that requires a little more of a craftsman’s touch, they say, “Better get Grandpa.” When I tell them that I think I can do this, they say, “Dad, stick to building fences and docks.” My wife, bless her heart, has a certain confidence in my carpentry skills. Either that, or she loves to see me make a fool of myself.

  I know this, because whenever a new issue of the magazine Cottage Life arrives, I have to try to be the one to retrieve the mail. This way I can flip through the magazine and tear out any puttering, inventive, handyman projects that might catch her fancy. She’ll say, “We seem to be missing pages 94 to 102.”

  To which I’ll shake my head and respond, “You really don’t know how magazines work, do you? They always keep a few pages in reserve in case a late, great story is submitted.”

  Unfortunately, there are those times when I have to work and cannot hang around the mailbox all day. I get home and there she will be, leafing through the pages of the latest issue. “Oh,” she says, “you should come and see this. Think we [meaning you] can build it?”

  So I try to build a bar trolley to wheel down to the dock. The wheels fall off on its first mission, and we lose half of our cocktail supply. Who knew you couldn’t just nail the wheels on? Then I build the fancy, floating dumb waiter to get drinks and lunch out to the swim raft. It sinks.

  In the latest “Special Anniversary” August 2007 issue, there is a six-and-a-half-page spread, complete with photography and illustrations, describing the building of a two-seater wooden Muskoka loveseat that doubles, mysteriously, as a canoe rack. Not only a canoe rack, but also a canoe lift — it helps you hoist your canoe out of the water. I notice that my wife has dog-eared the page. What a dumb idea. Whatever happened to the days when you would canoe to the dock, reach down, grab the gunnel, hoist the canoe over your head, and carry it to the canoe rack on shore?

  “We [meaning you] should build one of these.” She sees it as a romantic loveseat — that it is also a canoe hoist is of no consequence.

  “But you could only sit in the chair if I was out paddling the canoe,” I whine.

  “Exactly!”

  I imagine myself paddling the canoe around the island, around the bay, pleading with her to let me dock for lunch. “Just a few more minutes,” she will say, “I just want to finish this chapter.”

  Worse, I envision her sitting and flirting in the loveseat with Hunk Hankinson, the real handyman on the lake, who lives in the fancy, overbuilt, over-organized cottage on shore. I would be out paddling, and paddling some more, waiting for permission from my controller to begin my approach and land. Meanwhile, he would be pointing out all the flaws in my creation, telling her how he would have done it better, and they would both be giggling. I might be allowed brief docking privileges if their drinks were to run dry.

  All this for a silly loveseat that transforms itself into a canoe hoist and rack. I see myself sidling up to the dock in my canoe, hopping out, tying off, going around and flipping the hinged seat over and into the canoe, and then going back to the canoe to line it up with the overturned seat and to attach the chair armrests to the canoe thwarts. Then, getting back on the dock, I would untie the canoe from the dock cleats, before going around and pulling on the hoisting ropes to flip both the chair and canoe over and onto the dock. The half-hour process complete, my wife would wander down with her book and a sandwich and say, “Hey, I was just about to sit in that chair!”

  The Cottage Duel

  Okay, it’s not really the same as pistols at fifty paces, a good old medieval joust, or a bare-knuckled boxing match in the school playground, but, at the cottage, it is a fair means of settling disputes. Insults have been cast, a challenge is made and accepted, and the duel begins. The combat sometimes lasts for only a few brief seconds. Other battles can take fifteen minutes or more. The winner stays dry. The loser suffers an embarrassing dunking in the lake.

  We call it gunnel bobbing, a canoe-based balancing act akin to lumberjack log rolling. The two combatants paddle out int
o the bay, one climbs up on the stern, the other on the bow, both face each other with feet firmly planted on the canoe gunnels. The idea is to shake and bob and wobble the canoe around to throw your opponent off balance. When you see you’re getting the upper hand, you go for the kill — a couple of hard shakes has them tumbling into the surf.

  For us, gunnel bobbing had become a somewhat forgotten sport. Canoes were used for more practical purposes, like paddling around on a quiet evening or heading out on a multi-day trip. We were going through an old box of snapshots, which we had discovered stored away at the back of a cupboard at the cottage, when we came across some goofy photos of us as kids, gunnel bobbing out in the little bay on my brother’s cedar strip canoe. After commenting on the horrendous styles of our circa 1979 bathing trunks and bikinis, our kids were excited to have discovered another way to have fun at the cabin. A tournament was arranged: it would be sister against sister, sister against brother, and cousin against cousin. The “All World Cottage Gunnel Bobbing Championship” was at stake.

  My past experience made me resident expert, coach, trainer, and judge. When coaching new combatants, I always stress the point that it is unwise to try to hang on when a dunking is inevitable. Refusing to face certain defeat usually just means that you tumble into the canoe instead of into the refreshing water. That can hurt — so, when you are losing your balance, the best strategy is to jump clear into the lake.

  It is a lesson that stubborn boys, in particular, are slow to learn. This is especially so when they are paired with their obnoxious sisters: they must win at all costs. So it is with my son’s first competition. He does what I warned against and topples into the canoe upon losing his balance — one leg in the boat and one in the lake, his tender acorns cracking on the canoe gunnel. Boys, of course, hate to smack their nether-regions, while at the same time they get a kind of perverse giggly pleasure out of falling in such an uncomfortable manner. All onlookers of the male variety groan and grimace and hunch over in discomfort when bearing witness to such a tragedy. With his pale face contorted in instant agony, my son teeters slow-motion overboard and into the lake. The cool water obviously plays a hand in hurrying his recovery.

  In the end, one of the male cousins is crowned champion. With this knowledge, I unwittingly extol the virtues of the male athlete as superior to that of the fairer sex. I, too, I point out, was a hero in my day. Having heard enough, my wife challenges me to a duel.

  My superior cunning, athleticism, and balance pays off (as well as the fact that I start the battle before she says “Go!”). I thus have her scrambling to find a foothold from the beginning, and in no time at all she tumbles into the cool lake water. Victory is mine. I am the greatest! Unfortunately, when you are a little heavier, even when you win the battle, you lose. As soon as I have managed to rid myself of the bow ballast, my weight in the stern throws the bow of the canoe high in the air, so that the sixteen-foot prospector looks more like a rocket ready for lift-off than a canoe ready to be paddled to shore. I feel immediately like the captain of the Titanic, and prepare to go down with the ship, joining my grumpy wife in the lake.

  It’s not pistols at fifty paces, a medieval joust, or a playground boxing match, but at the cottage it’s a fair way of settling disputes.

  Such is life, and a hard lesson for me, and for men, everywhere to learn. The rest of the evening is spent in relative silence. Supper is a fend for yourself, as my darling spouse has decided she is not hungry. All my peace offerings are rebuked. Life is a bit like gunnel bobbing. Sometimes you are better off just taking the fall, because often even when you win, you lose.

  A Gathering of Loons

  Come here, Norman ... hurry up. The loons! The loons!

  They’re welcoming us back.

  — Ethel Thayer in Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond

  We heard the first two loons flying overhead before we saw them settling on the lake. They were soon joined by our resident couple, as the duo that frequented our little bay floated in, hooting softly. I was about to head back to the cabin when I saw a third pair winging in from the north. The four on the lake let up a mournful wail. To my surprise, other loons started coming in from all directions — all landing with a great splash, already hooting and yodelling.

  The loons arrived in pairs, perhaps coming from all of the surrounding lakes. They floated about in a small flotilla in front of our island, moving towards us and then away, seemingly uncertain of their direction. It was like a town council meeting, this gathering of loons. They stayed in the group, talking amongst themselves and drifting to and fro.

  I’ve seen this on a few occasions in my life. The first time was as a youngster during a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. Forty loons or more gathered on the lake where we had set our camp. I remember my older brother was out fishing when the loons started arriving. He wound in his line and sat still, one person amongst all these birds. He drifted silently amongst the loons in his cedar strip canoe. So subtle and gentle were his paddling movements that the loons paid little attention. Then he cupped his big hands and blew into them, mimicking well the loon’s crazy cry, wagging his fingers to get that staccato rhythm. Rather than being spooked, the loons seemed to answer back, arguing their point. After an hour or so, the loons started leaving, winging off in the directions they had come. The meeting was adjourned.

  I saw this unique gathering of loons again some twenty-five years later, on a turquoise glacial lake in British Columbia’s rugged interior. We had flown in from different directions for a tourism board meeting at a resort on Chilko Lake. A hundred loons also gathered together on the same lake in the late afternoon, discussed regional business, and then headed home.

  Children bring so much energy to cottage life.

  And now, here they are gathering on our lake, a smaller group of some fifteen to twenty, perhaps only a committee meeting this time. Maybe this was their own type of G8 Summit. Possibly they are meeting to discuss the problems that we humans bring to the lake, and to work out ways to combat them. Perhaps, in these bird’s eyes, the cottagers that assemble each summer at the lakes is the true “gathering of loons.”

  No matter the reason for the assemblage of these Common Loons, once again, it is a spectacular sight, with so many of these beautiful birds brought together. While their calls are usually hauntingly solo, here they hoot and yodel in a veritable symphony of voices.

  I can’t help but laugh at those that think it is time that the loon be replaced as the symbol of our wild lake country. “The Moose is the New Loon” is the rallying cry from cottage magazines and cottage marketers. Well, with all due respect to the moose, majestic, powerful, and very Canadian though it may be, the loon is still and always will be the symbol of our northern hinterland. I remember sitting by the campfire bewitched, light from the flames dancing across the white rock, when the silence of the night is pierced by the loon’s cry, the wail of the insane. It is a call that is difficult to describe and impossible to forget. The guttural bawling moan of a moose is just not the same.

  No one has heard the Common Loon — the mournful wails and crazy laughter that can haunt a still, dark summer’s night — who will not be eternally affected by it or not associate it with the cottage on the lake. The loon has become the authentic representation of wilderness, and a vital component of it. As Henry David Thoreau said in The Maine Woods, “It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place.”

  The Sting

  It was the first night of our summer vacation, our first night with the family at the cottage this year. My wife and I had settled into our boathouse bunkie. I’m afraid our boathouse is a modest one, not like some of the massive buildings you can admire on Millionaire’s Row. Ours is practical, small and rustic, but charming and quaint. It has a big picture window that allows a magnificent view of the lake, and we like to swing the two wooden doors open wide so we can see the stars, watch the lights shimmering on the water, and hear and smell the outdoors. A big, framed, flowing mosquito
net drapes down from the ceiling over our bed, making us feel like explorers on an African safari. It protects us from pesky bugs, but does not separate us from the night.

  I arrive with an oil lamp after tucking the kids away in the main cottage, to find my wife in bed under the comforter reading. “I see there’s a big wasp nest under the front peak,” she says nodding towards the roof front over the swinging doors.

  “Really? Is it active?” I ask, and go to have a peak.

  “I’m sure it is,” she says, “but we can look after it tomorrow in daylight. I think I have some of that foam wasp stuff in the cabin.”

  By my thinking, with the wasps also tucked neatly in for the night, right now might be the time for a quick attack — and who needs the Raid. I look around and grab a paddle. My plan is simple: with one quick swing I’ll bat the nest and its contents out into the lake and then I’ll swing the doors shut quickly to neutralize any counterattack. My wife, seeing me walk forward with paddle cocked, begins to protest, but too late.

  It almost works …

  To be fair, it would have worked perfectly, if not for the sudden gust of wind. I batted the plump, pear-shaped nest just as a gust of wind blew the boathouse door shut. Like an exciting Wimbledon tennis match, the door expertly returned my serve. I did manage, most impressively I thought, considering I was using a canoe paddle, to make a nice backhand return volley. The nest hit the door once again, a second blow that, perhaps, only served to further anger the wasps. They spilled out and focussed their venom on me.