Kingdom
It is a beautiful sunny day. Wispy clouds drift lazily across the blue. My wife snoozes in the lounger with an open book on her lap. The children play on the swim raft moored in the bay, pushing each other off in some form of “king of the castle.” The giggling and laughter is a beautiful sound. King of the raft they may be, but I am the monarch of this island, methinks, as I stand surveying my kingdom.
Often when we think of an earthly paradise, it is an island that is imagined. True, it is mostly a tropical destination, with white sand beaches, blue ocean, and swaying palms, but also it seems to be the self-containment that the island promises that is an important part of the fantasy.
My cottage is on an island. It is far from tropical; in fact, it can be quite chilly some days, even in summer. There is no sandy beach, no salty ocean air or turquoise water, no palms, sea birds, or tropical fish. The island is a balsam-scented, three-acre mound of rock, cedar, and pine situated in the middle of a lake in the northern woods. It is the island from a Tom Thomson painting. The conifers are bent in the wind and gnarled with age.
On the island, in a setting of white birch and mountain ash, is a rambling log cabin with a loft and ladder, polished wood furniture, a wood-burning fireplace, covered porch, and cedar privy. Muskoka chairs are on the dock at the end of a short, well-worn path. There is no electricity, telephone, or running water. A propane oven or little wood stove is where we do our cooking, and oil lamps help light the cabin at night. It is a relaxing place, and a fun and safe place for the family. The children and our dogs can run around and we do not worry. The island provides a combination of freedom and security.
King of the castle — giggling and laughter are beautiful sounds.
The island might lack the tropical flavour or even the fearsome cliffs or craggy mountains that fix some islands in one’s memory. Here, at the cottage, the beauty is more modest than spectacular. It is beautiful, though, surrounded by inviting water and a sweeping panorama of inlets, islands, and peninsulas.
True, cottaging on a remote island can provide certain obstacles. One cannot so readily hop in the car and head to town for milk and bread. It is a little bit more of a logistical dilemma when everything has to be brought by boat — the provisions for a week’s stay, the hundred-pound propane cylinders needed for cooking and refrigeration, or the lumber for a cottage project. The marvellous sense of isolation is peculiar to islands, and it is this isolation that both limits distractions and demands self-sufficiency.
I have always thought of myself as an island person. My wife and family would say that I am frugal. I am self-sufficient, comfortable with solitude, an avid reader, and greedy for small pleasures. Since this is an island that has been in the family since my childhood, the cottage also encourages a powerful nostalgia in me.
It was on the island that I learned to fish and canoe, water-ski, chop wood — it was here that I grew to manhood. I cut a deep, jagged gash in my left pointer finger when the crosscut saw I was using slipped out of the log. I hid by the water on a rock ledge surrounded by cedars, not wanting to admit my careless mistake — holding a blood-soaked cloth over a wound that needed stitches. Unembarrassed now, I show the scar to my children.
Yes, back then I was just a kid, a mere serf in this domain. Now I am royalty!
The children are at the shore now, climbing out on swim rock, asking what is for lunch. My wife is awake, giving me orders to put the barbecue on for hot dogs.
“Can you take us out water-skiing after lunch?” the kids ask.
“You said you’d take me fishing,” my son reminds me.
“And you were going to fix the dock this afternoon,” suggests my wife.
“Yes, my liege,” says the man who would be king.
Puppy Love
I recently introduced a new family pet to life at the cottage. Boomer is a year-old husky, playful, athletic, good-looking, and a little thick. Technically he is no longer a puppy, though he certainly does act like one.
It was love at first sight for him as far as the cottage goes. And why not? Cottage life is a perfect fit for most dogs. Upon arrival on the three-acre island he is in constant motion. There are so many new sights, smells, and places to explore. As we unpack and get things organized, Boomer and Timba run this way and that. They are just two medium-sized huskies, but sound like a whole herd of elephants as they thunder past.
With my chores complete, I sit down in the rocker on the front porch and open an ice-cold beverage. I’m asked to light the barbecue, so I set down the beer for just a second and step off the porch. When I turn back I see that the darling pup has pierced the tin with his incisors and is lapping up the spraying liquid. I let out a piercing scream, causing Boomer to dart off into the trees with the can of Kilkenny still clenched in his teeth. It’s my own fault. Why would I leave an almost full tin of cold, crisp ale unguarded? Who could blame the parched canine, overheated from all the running, for satisfying his thirst.
After dinner I take the kids for a quick ski. Boomer worries greatly about this ritual, people being dragged around the water on a rope, kind of like backwards dog sledding. He paces and whines, and smooches with the children when they return safely to the dock. At one point he leans out too far and tumbles into the lake. He panics and swims under the dock and gets stuck there looking like a drowned rat. I have to get in the water and rescue him.
We take an evening paddle around the island. Boomer follows us on land, dashing around the trail, alighting on different rocky viewpoints on the shore. When we pass that point, he darts back into the bush and reappears at the next rocky precipice. When we return to the dock, he comes bounding down, slips and slides off and into the water. He tries to swim underneath the stringers and gets stuck. I look at Timba and we both shake our heads.
I had a restless sleep in the boathouse bunkie that night, as I tossed and turned and dreamt about being on an African safari with elephants, lions, and hyenas circling my tent. The night is filled with all kinds of weird African noises. In a sleepy, half-dazed, early-morning state I stumble to the cabin to put on some coffee, and almost immediately fall into a huge crater that was dug in the middle of the trail. I yell for help, but neither human nor dog responds, so I scramble out of the hole myself. It appears that the dog had been trying to dig up some kind of rodent, perhaps a vole.
She would welcome the kids back to land — swimming and skiing, were to her, supreme acts of folly.
Awake now, I look at the scene before me, horrified. It looks like a war zone, even worse than the kids’ bedrooms at home. Somehow Boomer has opened the door to the utility shed and dragged everything out — tools, nails, gas cans, boat oil, pieces of lumber, paintbrushes, tarps, and rope. Every knick-knack necessary for cottage survival is spread about. He has even pulled out the chainsaw and appears to have tried to start it.
I then find all the cooking utensils that usually hang neatly on the barbecue, scattered about like there has been some wild doggy party. The metal tongs and spatula are dinted and dimpled with teeth marks. The handle of the cleaning brush has been eaten off.
I find bits of clothing that had been left outside. Some of it is still recognizable. The dog grabbed my oldest daughter’s bikini bottoms, although I would have thought he would rather sink his teeth into something a little more substantial, and chewed
