… we swim

Cottage lakes will always have a special place in our hearts.

Cottage life is not complete without the lake—for that daily cannonball or that sneaky, nightly skinny dip. Come on in. The water is fine, fine, fine.

In praise of cottage swimming

There is a time during every vacation at our small island cottage in the middle of Georgian Bay, when a call rings out for a round-the-island swim.

This circumnavigation is not so much a race as a slow-moving caravan, complete with rest stops as required, as well as much waving and shouting. It is a chance to contemplate the contours of this familiar one-acre spot from a frog’s eye view, to meditate on the texture of the cold, silky water against bare skin. But most of all, for me, it is a tour through cottage and family history.

My grandmother, who built the cottage and spent time nearly every summer on the Bay for 80 years, was the OG swimmer in the family. Each morning we would spot her bathing