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  #1  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:25 PM
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The Great Canadian Cottage Life Thread

I might not have done it in Canada, but it somehow still feels very Canadian: I bought a small cottage this year. In fact, I'm there right now, as I came out to hook up the electrical heating on the water line to our well, as I'm worried about the pipe freezing.

In some ways, this is the antidote to my city life, which takes place in a row of 4-5-storey wall-to-wall buildings on a narrow, treeless street near the city centre. I don't know that I would have felt the pull if we were in a house, particularly as most of Stockholm's single-family home areas resemble small, Swedish towns (which is actually a gripe, too -- there's no Leaside or Montreal-West here. You are either in Stockholm or you're not).

But it's pretty awesome. There is a very strong middle-aged energy surrounding things like the fireplace and the wood-burning stove, which I can turbo-boost through worst-case considerations regarding the things we discuss in the foreign affairs thread. It's not a big lot, but it's perched on a high rock and determinedly self-reliant up there so long as firewood remains available, and preferably not just the native birch (you might as well make a fire out of Marlboro Lights).

One of the nice things about Stockholm is that it is large enough to offer most metropolitan conveniences, but you can get out of it very quickly. My cottage is about 1km outside the village of Mariefred (about 45 minutes from town), which has a lot of charm, an old castle, and a famously badly stuffed lion in said castle, which was apparently a gift from the Bey of Algiers, as reconstructed by a Swedish guy who barely knew what a lion was.

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Bottom line, when I am out here I ask myself why I need the city at all, and even if the great affection for cities that led me to SSP was just an epiphenomenon of mate-seeking behaviour that has now reached some fundamental point of expiry.

In town, however, it is easy to forget this place even exists.

Any other cottage, cabin or camp lovers in SSP Canada?
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  #2  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:28 PM
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Hey, asshole. You don't even live in Canada.
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  #3  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:31 PM
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Hey, asshole. You don't even live in Canada.
Yeah but it's cold, dark, socially reserved and people watch hockey. I'm as close as I can be for being this far.
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  #4  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:42 PM
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There's something about spending half the year shivering in the dark, and huddled together in drafty houses for warmth that does bad things to the psyche. Most northern peoples are afflicted with SAD, and are chronically depressed.

The country with the highest incidence of bipolar disorder is Scotland. Scots have a dour and fatalistic personality. Is it a wonder why?????

I like cottages BTW, but I don't have one. When we built our house 20 years ago, we chose a double lot in the city with a mini forest in the backyard and put in a pool rather than purchasing a cottage. It was either one or the other.

It's almost like having a cottage in the city, but you never are really able to get away. I enjoy my naps in the gazebo though.
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  #5  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:50 PM
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad View Post

I like cottages BTW, but I don't have one. When we built our house 20 years ago, we chose a double lot in the city with a mini forest in the backyard and put in a pool rather than purchasing a cottage. It was either one or the other.

It's almost like having a cottage in the city, but you never are really able to get away. I enjoy my naps in the gazebo though.
The guy I bought this from used to have my setup, with an inner-city apartment and then this place, but he sold it when he moved the family to one like yours, i.e. a suburban house with a pool. He figures he has both worlds in one now, which I understand.

For me, anything even remotely in the gazebo category, including hammocks and grilling and the like, has to take place here because the apartment is just some rooms in a wall, basically.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:51 PM
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad View Post

There's something about spending half the year shivering in the dark, and huddled together in drafty houses for warmth that does bad things to the psyche. Most northern peoples are afflicted with SAD, and are chronically depressed.


When I first moved to Denmark, my doctor prescribed me Vitamin D and when I asked her why, she just said "everyone who lives here should just take it, but foreigners especially". And now I am an 8-hour drive northeast of even that.
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  #7  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:57 PM
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The country with the highest incidence of bipolar disorder is Scotland. Scots have a dour and fatalistic personality. Is it a wonder why?????
I wonder if that explains both the whisky and the kilts.
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  #8  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 7:59 PM
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I wonder if that explains both the whisky and the kilts.
Not sure about the kilts, but the whiskey certainly would make you less concerned about the howling winds outside the door.

No wonder alcoholism is so rampant in Russia.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:04 PM
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No wonder alcoholism is so rampant in Russia.
Putin plays a role I'm sure. And before him, many other leaders.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:09 PM
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I like to rent private rural places every so often. I'm not sure I'd want to buy one and always be in the same place, and I might want to go someplace warmer and sunnier in the winter.

I think I'd like the concept of land as a kind of canvas and creative outlet for building things. You can't do much with a condo. If you put up the wrong tint of blinds here the gestapo will spam you with emails and post passive-aggressive notices in the elevator.
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  #11  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:10 PM
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Do you mean a cottage, a camp or a cabin?

Depending on the part of the country you live in, those all mean the same thing or very different things.
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  #12  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:13 PM
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Do you mean a cottage, a camp or a cabin?

Depending on the part of the country you live in, those all mean the same thing or very different things.
In NB, cottages are on the seashore (or on the lake). Camps are in the woods. We don't use the term "cabins" here.
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  #13  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:31 PM
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I like to rent private rural places every so often. I'm not sure I'd want to buy one and always be in the same place, and I might want to go someplace warmer and sunnier in the winter.
When I was a kid, cottages were cheap and long-distance (i.e. outside of North America) travel was prohibitively expensive for many. So when I was a kid, a lot of us grew up cottaging at the various lakes near Winnipeg. That was the case with me, and I seldom travelled during the summer as a result, other than the odd long weekend trip.

Now it's the other way around... my only friends with cottages are the ones who inherited them, and the ones who are really, really into the cottaging lifestyle such that it justifies the expense. For me, at least up until covid, summers usually mean hopping on a plane and going overseas. (Looking forward to resuming that next year, though)

I loved the cottage when I was a little kid but as soon as I got my drivers' license as a 16 year old, I pretty well stopped going.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:34 PM
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Cool idea for a thread. My family actually has a cottage on the northern fringe of Muskoka. Which, while growing up I was never super into - even as a kid I was always a city guy at heart.

But during the Covid lockdowns, when the city was desolate and empty, my girlfriend & I would often drive up and spend weekends alone together there, and just enjoy & appreciate the quiet, simple, pleasures that it afforded: cooking elaborate meals & eating them while sitting on the rocks outside, having fires, swimming, going for walks, doing mushrooms, letting our animals run around freely, and so on. It's cosy & woodsy; and not unlike Kool, I'd often find it hard to readjust to the city after a peaceful weekend away. Not that I could live full time up there either though.






Living in Vancouver now, that cottage is one of the things I miss the most. Once money allows it though, our plan is to buy a plot of land on the Island (or one of the Gulf Islands), and design & build a little cabin of our own - a weekend getaway for us here, and income-generating vacation rental property while we're away; and a home base in BC for if and when we end up back in Toronto. Either way it's a lot more realistic than owning property in the city!
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:34 PM
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I've seen "camps" in Northern Ontario that are 3000 sq ft year-round residences with all the amenities of a suburban home. But also ones that are little more than shacks in the woods. Seems like a bit of a catch-all there, just as "cottage" can range from Muskoka mansion to places without running water in Southern Ontario

Growing up in Calgary the idea of a cottage seemed very foreign - lots of people rented places in the summer but a full-fledged second place was rare. Wasn't till I moved to Ontario I realized what a large part of the culture it was.


We looked at the idea of cottage properties when searching to buy but decided to get a second residence in a small town (Napanee) instead. I do enjoy visiting peoples cottages, but tend to get bored after a bit without much to do that doesn't require driving. Plus I'm super picky about swimming in lakes. Walking distance to a few bars and restaurants and a quick drive to fancier stuff in Prince Edward County seemed lie a good compromise. Still have a big fenced in yard and installing a hot tub which is a luxury in the city.

I do wish it was only a 45 minute drive though! 2 hrs 15mins isn't bad but enough for me to be prohibitive to go there and back in one day.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:36 PM
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I like to rent private rural places every so often.


I was doing that since 2020 until I figured I'd buy and maybe Airbnb it myself, which I hope to do in the spring.
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  #17  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:36 PM
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When I was a kid, cottages were cheap and long-distance (i.e. outside of North America) travel was prohibitively expensive for many. So when I was a kid, a lot of us grew up cottaging at the various lakes near Winnipeg. That was the case with me, and I seldom travelled during the summer as a result, other than the odd long weekend trip.

Now it's the other way around... my only friends with cottages are the ones who inherited them, and the ones who are really, really into the cottaging lifestyle such that it justifies the expense. For me, at least up until covid, summers usually mean hopping on a plane and going overseas. (Looking forward to resuming that next year, though)

I loved the cottage when I was a little kid but as soon as I got my drivers' license as a 16 year old, I pretty well stopped going.

Cottages in the old sense of the word, as an affordable rustic retreat by the lake, are rapidly dying out because the government has essentially made them illegal.

It used to be that a group of people could get small properties (0.5 acres or so) of waterfront severed off from large 200 acre concession lots used for logging for a low price (because there were so many available), get together with a bunch of other people doing the same to pitch in for a dirt road connecting their lots to the nearest public road, and then grab a bunch of buddies together for summer weekends to build a basic cabin, which was doable because planning and building rules in many small rural townships used to be close to be very basic. It used to be an affordable way for people to have an escape in an era where international travel used to be much more expensive than it is now.

But then the government restricted severances of lakefront lots as part of an environmental/conservationist push to limit lakefront development, and historically urban-only things like zoning rules and property standards bylaws began to be extended to rural areas as well, making the sort of basic bare-bones cabin that used to be the norm for cottages effectively impossible to build anymore.

The result is that new cottage construction is basically impossible, and when it does happen, it's very expensive lakefront dwellings that are basically houses.
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Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:38 PM
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Here, a cottage is technically "en stuga" but it's also a "fritidshus" or a "free time house", which I think really reflects how a lot of Swedes would just rather be in the woods when all is said and done.

I wonder if I am becoming like this.
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  #19  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:42 PM
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This is small cottage built in the 1950s, so like 600-700 square feet and originally built around the one chimney flue with the fireplace on one side and the stove on the other.

The previous owner put a big deck in, though, and renovated the interior nicely if minimally with an IKEA kitchen, so it's a little more than the raw cabin it once was, but not quite like a house. I have electricity here but no wifi or tv or anything (although it's still close enough to Stockholm that I can just make a mobile hotspot for whatever and have it be fast, so that's a bit of a false rusticity -- I'm obviously on SSP now).

A lot of the people out here made some pretty crazy additions during the pandemic, and a few of my neighbours basically use the new work from home norms to stay out here most of the time, only visiting the city once a week or so.
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  #20  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2022, 8:45 PM
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I was doing that since 2020 until I figured I'd buy and maybe Airbnb it myself, which I hope to do in the spring.

We're hoping to start renting our place out occasionally starting in Spring as well - just have a fair amount of work to do before then. Never done something like that before and it seems a bit daunting. Though based on a lot of the Airbnbs I've been in recently I think we can easily make our place desirable enough. We'd definitely be doing it in a way that's more in-line with how the service was intended as opposed to a full-time rental.
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