Canada Summering

After three years of nestling in our fruit and flower filled property overlooking the Golfo Dulce, I returned to my special summer place on the Severn River in Central Canada. The log cabin cottage with red and white trim sits on an outcrop of moss covered granite. It is surrounded by towering lodge pole pines, their sparsely needled branches reaching south as if to turn their backs away from the biting north wind.

Through five generations my family has made the journey to this place. When my Dad was a kid they traveled by train and boat launch to get here. This time I traveled on four buses, two jets, two cars, and a ski boat. On the last leg of the trip, as we cruised across the river, my sister asked if it was worth it. I realized that I’d been away too long and with tears leaking from the corners of my eyes I exclaimed, “Every minute!”

During my life of traveling and working around the globe, I am always drawn back to this place as a well-spring of balance and rejuvenation. I couldn’t imagine that another place that could give me so much joy might exist.

Many years ago my mother moved to western Canada with her new partner. There they found a high mountain cabin that became their retreat. Though she had spent 2 decades of summers at the cottage with my sister and I and she knew how important the cottage was to me, she said, “Someday you may find another place that you will love as much.” I scoffed at the idea.... until I discovered a partially cleared, out-of-the-way couple of acres edging the Costa Rican jungle. It became my forever home.

It is quiet in the mornings at the cottage. As the mist rises from the river I might hear the long, low call of a loon, the occasional squeal of a gull, or honks from a cruising flotilla of Canadian geese. All those sounds are sedate compared to the cacophony of the jungle noises that wake me in my home in Costa Rica; a pair of toucans squawking about their morning meal, accompanied by singing cicadas, the chirp of petite iridescent tanagers nesting in the eaves, all backed by the growl of howler monkeys waking up in the trees behind the garage. It is like the tuning of the orchestra, offering the excitement and anticipation of how the day will unfold.

Canadian summer high heat is usually 10 degrees or so cooler than home. The days at the cottage run a gamut of weather with sun, rain, heat, and chill, and today the wood stove roars orange to ward off a morning dampness. But that doesn’t deter me, I am so excited to swim in the fresh river water that I burst out of the cottage door and hurry down the stone-laid path in bare feet.

My sister continues to be amazed that I walk everywhere in bare feet. The soles of my feet have been toughened by walking down the stone-strewn Costa Rican beach on my way to surf the waves. No matter the temperature, I joyfully dive into the brisk water ... because the river won’t swim itself.

My sister and her family do an excellent job maintaining our retreat, but I am three years behind on my quota of cottage chores. In between kayaking, cruising, swimming, and chatting, I catch up with my assigned tasks, things like staining the Muskoka chairs, cleaning the pump house, and raking up mounds of oak leaves and pine needles. In its way it is just like being home.

There, typical tasks are collecting star fruit and bananas to dehydrate, fermenting cacao beans for chocolate, harvesting sugar cane to juice and chopping back the undergrowth that creeps over the path to the waterfall; little activities that connect me to the land’s rich energy.

As a teenager, I was lucky that my family traveled to tropical destinations for Christmas vacations. The concept that there were places in the world where it is summer all year long had a big impact on me and I clearly remember a dark December day when I was 17 and shoveling deep snow from the driveway. As I hoisted each heavy shovelful I vowed that someday I would live in warm climate where “I’d NEVER have to shovel snow EVER again!” And I found it.

If you have read any of my past stories you’ll know that they describe my years of happily living on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, in the hills above the ocean. My life there is filled with adventure, valuable experience, and love. I guess what really tips my preference from the cottage to the Golfo Dulce is that here I can live in T-shirts and shorts all year long. At the Severn, my preferred attire is only comfortable from mid-June to early September. My Canadian cottage is timeless and it will always be an important place in my life. Little things may change, but the fond memories of the scent of pine with aged wood, the slap of water as it ripples against the shore, and the crisp breeze, remain constant. I look forward to more summers there, yet my heart now lives full-time in the moist warmth and vibrant natural surroundings of my home on the edge of a wild and beautiful Costa Rican jungle. It’s good to be home.