Where I go to re-generate…

Each summer my kids (usually along with a friend or beau), Cariño (if he can make it - he has gone back to University and has missed the last few years), LT, her beau and I go to the cottage for our summer vacation. When the kids were younger and I was a single Mom, we would go alone. It has only been the last 3 years that LT and her beau have been able to stay the whole time with us…they used to just be able to come for a long weekend. As a teen I used to go with friends and the family…the cottage has been in the family since I was somewhere in my teens…before that we had a place further south.













In my view, there are basically 2 different kinds of ‘cottaging’ - social and remote…within these 2 categories it ranges from rustic to luxurious…I grew up cottaging in a comfortably rustic, remote manner…the first cottage was 26 miles by boat - my Dad and his brother owned the only 3 cabins on this lake that was at the mouth of the Moon River…a beautiful spot to spend my summers growing up and I have many wonderful memories from those times…as the years past, my uncle sold his cabin to our neighbours from Hamilton and that was fun, but then the people who bought the 3rd cabin, after assuring my family that they were quiet types and loved the remote peacefulness of the place, well…they started up a marina…we sold a couple years later…this is how I remember it all anyway…then it took a few years for my family to find the island where we go now, and, when my Dad wanted to sell it years later, I am so happy that my sister was able to buy it with her family…so we still get to go and enjoy this spot!











This spot, for me, is the most beautiful place on earth. There is something about it that calms and inspires me at the same time. It is an island, about a 20 minute boat ride out from the marina in Britt – in an area called the Thirty Thousand Islands…when there, I am surrounded by rocks, water and windswept trees…you have to look hard to see one other cottage a couple islands away…













The photos interspersed throughout this post are mine but photographer Kas Stone has some beautiful photographs on her site as well – one of her Galleries is titled “Georgian Bay’s Thirty Thousand Islands”, she also has one for “Killarney and the French River Delta”…










In the years of my failing relationship with the kid’s father, the island was a place where I could go and regenerate. In the years that I was a single Mom I took the kids there as much as I could and it became a healing place for all of us. It remains the place where we go each summer to re-group, re-generate and relax.














Over the years I have taken thousands of photographs of the area…I love the rugged Georgian Bay rocks and windswept trees. For years I have yearned to do justice to them in paintings…still working on that!











There is an artist – John Hartman – who has done some paintings I love of Georgian Bay…I believe he has a cottage not too far from ours…unfortunately I can’t find any pictures on the Net of the paintings of his that I have seen of the Georgian Bay area – but you will have to take my word that they are wonderful – thick paint and rich colours, paintings of the typical rocky islands of the area.













Many people know the area from the Group of Seven paintings from the Killarney area – the windswept trees and Georgian Bay rock. Doris McCarthy has spent many years at her Georgian Bay cottage painting the area. On my drive back from my week at Haliburton, I stopped in at the Algonquin Park Art Centre and one fo the things I picked up there was one of Doris’ books – “My Life” which was a nice read – interesting to learn about her life and painting adventures. It made me regret not picking up the book about her friend Ethel Curry called “Northern Belle”.













This summer at the cottage was wonderful…beautiful weather, swimming, great food and wine…we never managed to get the floor cloth project organized but we all seemed to end up painting on some project or another…will write about those next…

For now...here are some more photos...