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.
Photos in reverse order:
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?