My Summer Vacation

 "My summer vacation." Remember the moment the teacher presented that writing prompt on the first day back at school in September? No? Me neither. We were farm kids. She knew not to ask. Our families didn't vacation. Vacation was a self-starting, free-ranging adventure across acres of fields, forest and bayshore. 

Pitts Landing, Madoc

 I'm taking a break from foreign travel posts today - I   have a dozen Croatia stories in draft form - to savour   a week I've recently enjoyed in a nostalgic summer   cabin in the Madawaska Valley, which began life at a   cottage resort operating from the 1930s to 2017 -   evolving all the while as guests' tastes and   expectations changed over the decades.

My hosts told stories of the way it used to be, tiny guest sleeping cabins, a main building offering showers and three hearty linen service meals a day prepared by local women, lazy days on the long lawn stretching down to the sand beach on a warm shallow lake.  A community, a summer family, to which people would return year after year. Simpler times, we're fond of saying, but it's true. A summer colony.

My cottage for the week was one of the original sleeping cabins, extended and modernized into a delightful small home from home by my hosts.

Do their stories bring back the coming of age movie Dirty Dancing, wholesome chummy Kellerman's Resort and the 'too old for this' daughter? In case you're nostalgic, here's the Kellerman's anthem from the film, thanks to YouTube. (Incidentally, Kellerman's is still operating!)

The Madawaska visit, and my hosts Janet and Donald's stories resonated for me, releasing a flood of summer memories.

Lakelands - courtesy PEC Archives

My visit took me back to summer jobs ar two family resorts in Prince Edward County. One, called Lakeland Lodge is now only a picnic spot in Sandbanks Provincial Park. There are panels with photos of 'the way it used to be.'  I remember the main lodge, a dining room, not fancy, but still shining dark floors, white tablecloths and silverware, curtains blowing in the breeze off the lake. I got only brief glimpses; I was kitchen staff. I remember the cook, an impressive woman, who made the most delicious chocolate sauce, a rare treat. In lodges like these, kitchen staff were often farmers' wives getting paid for work they 'trained for' cooking gigantic meals for itinerant farm help, the celebrated 'threshers'. Indeed, the owners were farm people too. Here's a post I wrote about Lakelands on my now retired blog AncestralRoofs and here's an account with photos.

2012 - the old restaurant, dance hall already demolished 

  My next summer job, at Lake on the Mountain   Resort, had tiny cabins on the lake, a dining hall, and   lots of history, including an unfortunate racially   motivated bother on the occasion of a visiting dance   band in the 40s or 50s. By my time the dance hall   had evolved into a cafe with soda fountain, a la carte   fare and a juke box with dance floor. But still, we   had a farm wife cook - and a good one too. By that   time I had graduated to harried waitress. And now   LOM has become a 'destination.' 

  I researched and wrote a story on summer lodges in Hastings County for the vanished magazine Country  Roads, July 2016. Thank you Nancy Hopkins, it was a joy to work for you. I met Grant and Gayle who ran a family style tourist lodge, Pitts Landing near Madoc. The summer colony had evolved from a farmhouse offering accommodation to visiting fishermen into providing small cabins which became privately owned family cottages, second and third generation family returning to spend their summers at the lake. Memories upon memories. 

(If you follow the Country Roads link, and read to the end of the article you'll find the Pitt/Ketcheson cottage story.)  Gayle has given me permission to share these photos of the property.  

I've always been fascinated by the early days of summer holidays, the late 1800s - when folks travelled long distances (with trunks!) by train, excursion steamer and canoe or wagon to summer in Muskoka, Algonquin Park and idyllic spots like Bon Echo Lodge on Mazinaw Lake. That provincial park does a fine job of interpreting the era in their museum and on panels around the property. 

Many years ago, Prince Edward County lost an historic lodge of its ilk, Lakeshore Lodge (link takes you to my AncestralRoofs blog story.)  I've time travelled to cottage resorts at  Twelve O'Clock Point, Presqui'le point, Crowe and  Moira Lakes and so many more again this week, thanks to my little cottage holiday.

So, that's the way my mind worked as I sat in the yellow Muskoka chairs overlooking Lake Kamaniskeg last week. Find the 'Lakeside Cottage Getaway' on AirBnB. I know, tourist guilt. But no local accommodation was harmed in the creation of this retreat.