Forty-two years ago, I landed on the island as a visitor and passed the pre-spousal cottage test. That meant simply to survive a weekend off-grid and show boundless enthusiasm.
Mary and Jack, matriarch and patriarch, did their own thing. And, over the years, they showed me how to do the cottage thing, especially Mary, who was the beating heart of the cottage. When they weren’t down on the dock, my in-laws preferred the back deck. They got up early and drank coffee from bone China cups (after the war, Jack refused to drink from a mug). They folded their lean bodies into creaky metal chairs that faced toward the forest. They watched the morning sun start its grand arc toward the cottage’s favoured front, where it arrived in time for tea (for them) and cocktails (for us and our friends).
The back deck is not the most desired spot at the cottage. For one thing, it faces east, away from the water into woods that brim and buzz with mosquitoes (but also iridescent dragonflies and sweet wild blueberries). A wood-frame wall as thin as a cereal box separates the deck from the bathroom whose window looks onto the coffee-drinkers. Discretion goes out the window when occupants slam the ancient wood sash closed in an attempt at privacy.
Most visitors prefer the cottage’s west, or lake side. A generous screened porch settled high above the water takes in the drama of the Bay. Loons wail, power-boats rumble up the channel, and raging sunsets blaze like dragon’s breath across the sky.
On the back deck, Jack liked to supervise while Mary worked away with a paintbrush or served him tuna and chopped-pickle sandwiches for lunch. Next to the porch is an old shed, open on two sides, where we store brooms, rakes, garbage bins, and firewood. Mary would sweep the steps and feed peanuts to a chipmunk as brave as Heracles when he killed the snakes. She wrote “Chippie” on the lid of a large, green tin and kept the nuts in the pantry, a tall cupboard with shelves and a single light bulb with a chain you pull to turn on. We once turned on the light to discover a very real, very large, non-mythical fox-snake on the floor, but then decided he was after mice, not nuts, and so we let him stay.
Mary and Jack worried about the snakes, particularly massasauga rattlers, which we saw sometimes. On the back deck, we saw other creatures too, like the brown-and-grey grouse hen who hustled her babies to safety through the underbrush. Once, our buddy Jim went into the dark shed to get logs for the woodstove. My husband heard him yell and rushed after him, only to collide with Jim as he scrambled back out. The bear he had encountered face-to-face took off through the shed’s open back and lumbered off into the woods. Mary faithfully recorded these escapades in the guest book, a cottage log that tracked us through the years and kept our stories honest.
When we got a dog, the back deck was where we bathed our reluctant puppy. Sometimes, he slipped out of our soapy grip to roll happily in the dirt. The first time, Mary and Jack had a good laugh, until the dog heaved himself up, gave a mighty shake, and showered mud, moss, and pine needles upon all within range.
Eventually, the back deck became a staging area for the activities of our human babies. We bathed the toddlers in a tin wash tub, and Mary was lifeguard by their wading pool until they were old enough to graduate to the deep, cold water at the front of the cottage.
Grown-up now, our girls keep their own busy offspring corralled in the front screened porch, embraced by the warm sun and the view. But I still like to sit out back, where the trees, a few decades taller, throw a cool, dappled shadow. It’s peaceful, but it’s not entirely quiet. There is a whisper when the west wind blows over the roof and hits the highest branches. The leaves flip and flutter, and I hear their soft chatter in a way that seems near impossible at home under the thrum of cars and shriek of sirens that define life in the city.
That leafy serenade is magic, like toys that come alive after the store closes. It conjures the voices of the people we miss. We said goodbye to Jack in 1997, and Mary is nearly 102. She can’t come to the island anymore, but though she’s blind, she seems to see things we cannot. When I am alone on the porch, I wonder if she’s there with me, if that is Mary’s soft voice, a song on the wind.
Penny Caldwell is the former editor of Cottage Life. The back deck is at the Georgian Bay cottage she still visits after 42 years.
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