My wife, Karen, and I are, as usual, the last people to pull into the parking lot at the Portage Inn, on a warm Monday evening in the last week of August 2025. Also as usual, we’re responsible for the first night’s dinner, which is, according to tradition, deli-purchased in the city in a last-minute frenzy. It requires no cooking at all, which is why we brought it. We are eight days from our 50th wedding anniversary, half a century during which my wife has cooked exactly seven dinners, none in the last 30 years. So it is comforting for me to know, as we carry our cooler into the Inn’s large, venerable commercial kitchen and lay the cold cuts and rye bread and potato salad out on the ancient wooden island, that the closest I will come to cooking this evening will be having my brother-in-law Ed tell me, “You know, if you put your pastrami sandwich in the microwave with a glass of water for 60 seconds, you can steam it just the way they do in a real delicatessen.”
I will do no steaming. Instead, I will make myself a plate, walk from the kitchen into the enormous common room to the pool-table-cum-dining-table, and sit down for dinner with 30 people, ages 2 to 82, all of whom I’m related to.
In 1889, the Portage Inn—then called the Portage Lodge—was built on a picturesque hill above Peninsula (Pen) Lake, a short drive from Huntsville, Ont., not far off from what would eventually become Hwy. 60. For the next 120 years, it operated variously as a hotel, a spa, a special events site, and a social club for young people where they could mingle and dance without the benefit of alcohol. (Purportedly the neighbours were not thrilled at this last iteration.) In the year 2010, Toronto-born Nancy Fitzpatrick bought the place. She had fallen in love with the building, which was a five-minute drive from her sister’s cottage. The Inn includes 10 suites, with bathrooms, on three floors, capable of accommodating 30 people; and a smaller private “chalet” halfway down the hill that can sleep 10 more.
Nancy’s initial vision for the Inn was not as a lodge but as a kind of alternative short-term boarding residence for Baby Boomers who weren’t interested in conventional older adult group living; she thought the Portage Inn could be the first in a chain of similar establishments. While that dream percolated, she ran the Inn first as a bed and breakfast and subsequently as a site for weddings and various social events, all the while refurnishing the rooms with antique furniture, some her own, some purchased, some donated. When she was done, each room was stylistically harmonious, but no two rooms were the same. By that point, a different commercial model for the Inn had also occurred to her: renting the entire building to groups of people who knew each other. Groups of friends, that is, or families.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Last summer, puzzles were the preferred daytime activity for several members of the Teitel-Friedman family. “We had to keep going out to buy more,” says writer Jay Teitel (previous, with wife, Karen Friedman, and grandson Zev). “It was intense!”
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
”Driving up to it, I can’t imagine the place looks much different than how it was 100 years ago,” says Jay, about the Inn (above), which is perched on a hilltop overlooking Peninsula Lake, Ont.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Guests access the waterfront via a meandering public road just adjacent to the Inn.
This is where our family comes in. For years, three family units in our extended clan had been renting individual cottages in southern Ontario for a week or two in the summer. In 2020, the first summer of Covid, we all did as well. But the next summer, the virus was still paramount, and we decided to try to find something, a group of nearby cottages, maybe, that would accommodate us all together. What we found instead was the Portage Inn and a piece of strange magic.
The first clue to that magic came when I was touring the Inn for the first time. It was the sudden realization that if you happened to drop a marble anywhere you could always find it, because it would eventually roll to the same spot on the first floor. Everything inside was beautifully kept, historically so, but also a bit tilted. We had come, after all, to a 135-year-old cottage. Climbing the wide staircase to the second floor, with its unusually high risers, felt a bit like being in a home for moderately drunk giants.
The next thing that struck me that first day was that the Inn was an oddly perfect set for a variety of movies—in this case Coyote Ugly. When I walked into the common lounge area someone had just turned their portable speaker on to LeAnn Rimes singing “Can’t Fight the Moonlight.” Suddenly, it seemed every male in the room had put on a baseball cap and bellied up to the long, dark-stained bar, where they were being served drinks by a tandem of bar staff: my great-niece Jennifer, 8 years old and the bartender; and my granddaughter Lylah, 5 years old and the bar wiper. Jennifer’s mother, Sadie, 48 years old, was of course supervising, and placating Lylah, who was threatening to go on strike if she couldn’t at least hand somebody a shot glass.
The next day at breakfast, on the patio overlooking the lake, my other granddaughter, Evie, then aged one, took her first steps.
It was just that kind of place.
Meanwhile, ahead again to 2025, the deli dinner is a hit. It’s consumed largely in the kitchen itself, with people standing and eating. The kitchen, restaurant-sized, has some of the vibe of the TV series The Bear, with people milling and making sandwiches and calling out “Yes, chef,” and “Behind.” Over the next five days in that space, five different couples will make dinners that could share the word “gourmet” gourmet lasagna, gourmet fried chicken, gourmet ribs, gourmet pizza, and gourmet capellini with a side salad from the chef’s backyard garden. The kitchen is like an adult make-believe zone from which children are naturally banned because they have enough of their own make-believe zones. If you’re looking for an adult at the Inn and you can’t find them, chances are they’re in the kitchen. If you’re looking for a child, chances are they’ll be wedged into one of the well-worn easy chairs or couches in the common lounge, busy with something that is—eureka—not necessarily a screen.
It’s true: for some reason the grim pall of phones and tablets seems deflected at the Inn. Possibly it’s because with our group there are so many little kids in attendance, and they don’t have phones. And if you happen not to be a little kid, there will generally be enough people around you in any given space that eventually actual conversation will sporadically arise, like something smuggled in by an invasive species from another planet.
People do crossword puzzles at the Inn and jigsaw puzzles, play cards and pool, and read. If they haven’t brought any of their own reading material, the Inn is also a self-contained library. There are bookshelves on every floor, each packed with mostly fiction, many books by the same authors. (This includes, as far as I can tell, every book John Irving ever wrote.) The subjects, though, are eclectic; you can’t pin the literary taste down. Only one thing is lacking—paperbacks. Virtually all of the shelved books, which guests are welcome to read, are hardcovers.
It’s that kind of place.
It’s also a place conducive to two other old-time summer camp staples: themes and evening programs. The themes tend to follow the aforementioned movie motif.
First season: Coyote Ugly. (As described.) Second season: Look Who’s Talking (My granddaughter Evie, now two years old, comes down for breakfast and walks past my brother-in-law Ed, he of the steamed sandwich. “Evie,” I say, “Aren’t you going to say good morning to Uncle Ed?” “Morning, Eddie,” Evie says, and sashays on. Ed calls out “Evie, I’m leaving you all my money!”)
Third season: Jumanji (In honour of his wife Jessica’s birthday, my son, Zack, brings to the Inn a homemade drinking board game called “Jessica 69. For Millennials Only.” Don’t ask.)
Fourth season: KPop Demon Hunters. The Inn has a “contemporary” wing, a modern-ish area with a Swedish vibe that makes it seem like an addition but is actually a holdover from the Inn’s spa days; it includes one large bedroom, a three-piece bathroom, and a den with a large-screen TV, the only one in the entire building. It is here, on the second day of our stay, that I find myself ensconced on a sofa watching KPop Demon Hunters, with one other adult and eight cousins of various ages. My synopsis of the movie’s plot: long ago, demons stole human souls and gave them to a bad guy named Gwi-Ma to eat. A girl group trio disapproved and made a force field with a new song that repelled the demons and eventually hit number one on the charts.
This will be my only viewing of the movie. The female cousins will average four viewings; the males two. It’s an Inn rite of passage: the younger cousins watching the cool movie of the day with the older cousins for the first time and several subsequent times. Another important rite of passage: the first time a younger cousin is brave enough to sleep in the third floor common cousin bedroom instead of in their parents’ room. (Make it through half a night in the common cousin bedroom before running back to her parents, like Evie this week? Half a rite of passage.)
When KPop Demon Hunters is over, the female cousins go outside to the patio to rehearse their version of the movie’s big hit song, “Golden.” There’s a large adult group already out on the patio eating lunch, and they provide an enthusiastic audience. My daughter’s wife, Ella, provides guitar accompaniment. The general consensus is that the girls will be the hit of the Talent Show, which is always held on Saturday night, and which always includes one surprise act. The K-Pop Portage Inn Golden Girls are far too polished to qualify. Aged five to 17, they’re already headliners.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
The cousins range in age from one to 18. The youngest is baby Zev (here, with his mother Ella). ”Everybody is always playing with everybody,” says Jay, with eldest cousin Rose leading the pack.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Five-year-old Evie enjoys the dock.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
The kitchen has cottage charm galore, and includes stacks of mesh food covers and dinnerware for 30 or more guests. There’s even a hinged bartop ”for when you’re having serious parties and don’t want the drunks to get in,” says Jay.
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
It turns out, in fact, that the Talent Show isn’t the only source of surprise at the Inn this year. On Friday afternoon, a delegation of Millennials and Gen Xs, Ys, and Zs, approached Karen and me and asked us to put on “nice” clothes and accompany them to the tree-shaded lawn out back.
What’s waiting for us there is a combination surprise 50th wedding anniversary party and rededication of our wedding vows, said under a homemade chuppa, and officiated by our son, Zack. It’s actually not the first time Karen and I have renewed our vows. In 2010, we were remarried in Las Vegas by an enthusiastic Elvis impersonator who looked more like he’d been born in Naples, Italy, than Tupelo, Miss.
But that ceremony was bereft of presents, and the presence of speeches from our progeny. And that ceremony was just off the Vegas strip, not overlooking a Muskoka lake with the Inn’s waterfront at the edge of it. The waterfront is accessible by descending a set of grassy hills and crossing a lazy, two-lane lakeside road. There’s a dock and a little beach for little kids, with more pebbles than sand, and a conveniently shallow swim area. But its ambience is more historical than luxurious. The lake serves its purpose by simply being there. The Inn itself is the magnet.
The next evening, our second last, the Talent Show finally does take place. The K-Pop Golden Girls are not the only notable act. Lylah, now 9, accompanied again by her Aunt Ella, performs an extremely moving song/poem about her dead female cat, Morton. My wife, decked out in butterfly wings purchased at Dollarama, appears as the Summer Cottage Resolution Fairy, collecting resolutions for the coming year from everyone present (the resolutions will be reexamined at the Talent Show a year from now.) My sister-in-law Susan, who is incidentally exactly the same age to the day as me (and Bruce Springsteen) teams up with her 19-year-old grandson Sam, to perform a classic George Burns-Gracie Allen skit. Susan is maniacally fetching in a wild Gracie wig, and Sam as George Burns holds his cigar with the required suaveness as he delivers the famous last word in straight lines: “Say goodnight, Gracie.”
They’re followed by Ed doing karaoke of Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore”; Ed’s 7-year-old grandson Jack reeling off a rapid-fire collection of one-liners, including: “What do you call fake spaghetti?” “What?” “An impasta!”; yet another sister-in-law, Debra, singing “Don’t Fence Me In”; and my nephew Nathan and his wife, Elise, crooning an original ballad to their four-month-old daughter, Peggy.
And finally me, singing, for my better half of half a century, the Magnetic Fields classic song, “The Book of Love.” It includes my favourite verse, of possibly any song ever written: The book of love has music in it. In fact, that’s where music comes from. Some of it is just transcendental. Some of it is just really dumb…
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Like most things in the Inn, the pool table is old and well-loved. ”It’s perfect for a cottage," says Jay. "You don’t have to worrry about the felt getting ruined because there’s hardly any left.”
Photo by Daniel Ehrenworth
This multi-generational family of 30 gathers for a raucous annual reunion at an old Muskoka inn
Aunts and nieces play a rousing game of Hedbanz just opposite the pool action.
And then, not soon enough but also too soon, as always, our week together at the Portage Inn is over.
On our last morning at the Inn, with everyone hurrying to get their bags into the cars, my niece Rebecca’s husband, Mark, and I are in the lounge wiping glasses at the bar and collecting things we have to take home when a woman who is definitely not in our group walks through the lounge door.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Do you still serve breakfast here?” She’s blond and fresh-faced for her age, maybe 60-ish, with the look of a lifelong hippie. She clearly thinks Mark and I are the proprietors. I explain that we are in fact guests at the Inn. She says she was driving by with her canoe strapped on her car, looking for places to put in, and realized the building she’d just passed was the Portage Inn.
“I haven’t been here in years, but I remember it from when I was a teenager.” She scans the lounge. “There used to be dances here; the floor was there, where the pool table is. We came here a lot to dance. But not to drink. We had to do that outside, in the parking lot. My name’s Tree Star,” she says, offering her hand. “Is there a washroom here I could use?”
We direct her to the washroom next to the kitchen, and when she comes out, Mark hands her a bottle of water, of which we have too many. She thanks us and we watch her get back into her car, a well-kept older hatchback with a beautiful cedarstrip canoe strapped on top.
The whole exchange has been a little dreamlike, and not simply because of her name. She is a woman of a certain age looking for a place on Pen Lake to launch her canoe, maybe somewhere close to a portage that will take her to another lake. But if so, she is out of luck. The trick of the name Portage Inn is that it refers to no standard portage, a hiking path from one body of water to another. It refers to the “Portage Flyer,” a narrow- gauge train that was built in 1905 to connect the one-time steamboat dock on Pen Lake just near the Inn to a similar dock on the shore of Lake of Bays, a mere 1.8 km away. The track ran up the steep hill beside the Inn, so close that hot coal embers from the engine would often scatter on the dry grass, prompting guests to stamp the embers out to protect the hotel from a possible fire. The Portage Flyer chugged between the lakes for 55 years, til 1959, carrying mail, tanbark, food, and tourists. It was promoted as the “smallest commercially operated railway in the world,” and attracted train aficionados from as far away as Europe.
It’s a nostalgic story, and nostalgic is how I feel. Nostalgia comes naturally to Baby Boomers, especially Boomers older than 70, which is now the case with everyone in our cohort at the Inn. Maybe Nancy Kirkpatrick’s original dream of the Inn as an alternative residence for Boomers has come true after all. With a couple of dozen descendants thrown in, of course.
When shall we 30 meet again? And what will the movie be?
Toronto-based Jay Teitel is the co-creator of the board game, Therapy. He’s still trying to convince his granddaughters to play with him. Maybe this is the summer.
This story originally appeared in our Early Summer ’26 issue.
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