Wherever I am, I’m a morning person. I love to get going early, love to watch dawn bring the world to life. Some people, most notably my spouse, Steve, consider this a serious personality defect—especially when it manifested itself (as it invariably did) at our cabin on Mississagua Lake, Ont.
Awakened by the creaks of the bed he’d built, Steve would grouse about me jumpstarting my day before conking out again and leaving me in peace to enjoy my morning ritual. Even before making coffee (more heretical behaviour in his eyes), I needed to take stock of my tiny corner of the world.
Our favourite morning activities at the cottage
Sliding my kayak quietly off the dock, I’d paddle a circle around our bay—Crown land on two sides, five other cottages hidden among the trees on the third, and one teensy island—just to make sure all was as it should be. The scent of pine trees, wood smoke on chilly mornings, coffee brewing, and, most importantly, the sounds of the bay’s other inhabitants—not the human ones—as they started their own morning rituals.
The cries of “our” loons cutting through the mist as one called its mate, alerting me to its return to the nest on that teensy island. A great blue heron, camouflaged at water’s edge, suddenly lifting off with a raspy squawk a few metres from my bow. And, if I was lucky, the telltale ruffling of the water that would signal a beaver, floating on its back and intently stripping breakfast off a branch.
Some mornings I would head off on foot: up the hill behind our cabin to check on the blackberries, carrying an old wire-handled pot in case they were ripe, and a spoon to bang on it, in case a nearby bear had the same idea. Or I’d sneak up to the outhouse, where a pileated woodpecker broke the quiet, drilling holes in a dead tree to indulge in its own break-feast.
Coffee shops near and in cottage country for your morning brew
And sometimes, I didn’t even leave the cottage; I just listened from inside to take the measure of the morning. The creaking of the dock and slurping of the water underneath. The nattering of red squirrels. The thuds of impatient Thelonious (as we called our resident chipmunk), throwing himself at the screen door to demand his morning peanuts. Reassuring sounds. All was well.
One morning, however, when I was spending a few days alone at the lake, the morning quiet was broken by less-comforting sounds. It was mid-week, late in the season, the bay’s other cottages uninhabited. I heard some scrabbling under our cabin. Just Thelonious and his pals, I assumed. But the scrabbling became louder. “A raccoon,” I muttered, just before I had to upgrade “scrabbling” to “bumps and bangs.” A bear! I’d never seen one close to our cabin, and I couldn’t resist going outside for a peek from the safety of the deck. (After all, I reasoned, if a bear wanted in, it would have put its paws through the flimsy screen door by now.)
And that’s when I saw a man emerging from underneath the building. This was before cell service on our part of the lake. No neighbours to hear my screams. Steve had driven home, leaving my kayak as the only getaway car. Heart pounding, I got ready to run.
But in the seconds that followed, my brain registered an orange safety vest. With an Ontario Hydro patch on the pocket. It was decidedly odd attire for an axe murderer.
Cottage Q&A: How can you tell the difference between sunrise and sunset in photos?
“Good morning,” the man said. “We thought the cottage was closed up, and we stored some equipment under here yesterday. We’ve come to clear the right of way.” This made perfect sense: I had drawn the curtains and padlocked the door the previous day when I headed off on a long paddle. My heart rate slowed to normal. Morning calm returned. All was once again right in my little corner of the world.
Long-time readers of Cottage Life might think that story sounds familiar: I wrote about it in one of my Editor’s Notes more than 30 years ago. But I never wrote about what happened after the issue was published. Some higher-up at Ontario Hydro phoned to ask precisely where my cottage was, so the workers could be reprimanded for such “against the rules” storage.
I refused to squeal. No harm, no foul. I was happy to have exchanged my comfortable morning ritual for a good tale to tell. Just that once.
This article was originally published in the June/July 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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