No one who grew up living the Ontario cottage experience is going to be able to read Julia Harrison’s A Timeless Place: The Ontario Cottage without emotional reminiscences, so let me set out mine at the start.
In the 1920s, my grandfather bought up tracts of land on the Alcona Beach and Big Bay Point shores of Lake Simcoe, near Barrie: five sites, one for each of his offspring plus himself. Although my dad got probably the smallest cottage, he did get the best waterfront: the rock-free, weed-free, clear water deepened so gently that we could wade out more than 30 metres before it reached over our heads.
Our cottage had a faux log-cabin exterior and a cheap plywood interior. Until the late 1970s, it boasted what I derided as “the world’s only indoor outhouse,” fragrantly located right beside my bedroom. No...
James Roots, although currently living in Kanata, Ontario, is a born and bred Torontonian. He learned photography from his father, one of Toronto’s most popular wedding and portrait photographers for half a century.
Advertisement
Advertisement