Author: Cottage Life

Categories
Cottage Life

How to dress warmer for winter using what you already have

Photo by Ramon Cliff/Shutterstock

There’s a ton of new technology in winter wear, but don’t empty your closet—a lot of what you own is fine—as long as it’s the right material and you wear it correctly.

Kenora dinner jacket: Not all are created equal, so check what yours is made from. Wool or synthetic— keep it. Cotton—only wear it when you’re missing the cottage.

Grandma’s wool sweater: Great for snuggling, but not ideal as an insulating layer compared to new designs that have softer wools and sleeker cuts. Anything wool helps keep you warm, though.

Cotton: When damp, it sucks the heat from you. Wear wool (non-itchy merino is best) or synthetic as a base when you may break a sweat or get wet.

Jeans: Fine for casual wear, but not for outdoor activewear. Made of dense, heavy cotton weaves, they rob you of heat and feel uncomfortable when wet.

Rubber boots with felt liners: Nothing works better for slush, but try adding a footbed with more insulation, support, and comfort. Wear a lace-up winter boot for active sports or long-distance walks.

Multiple pairs of socks: Three or four pairs means you’ve got the wrong-sized boot or are cutting off circulation to your toes. The warmest combo is a thin wicking sock topped with a thicker one for warmth.

Yoga pants: If made from synthetics, they’re a good base layer. With snow pants or a shell, they’ll keep you warm when you’re playing in the snow.

Decode your tags

Manufacturers love coining high-tech labels for these four essentials:

  • Wicking: Moving moisture vapour and sweat off your skin will keep you warmer. Next to skin, wool (especially non-scratchy merino) and synthetics work equally well. Avoid cotton.
  • Warm: Down, fleece, and synthetic insulation trap heat close to your body. Electric jackets supply heat to keep you warm. All work, but no one choice is perfect. Down is packable, but is expensive and no good if it gets wet. Synthetics, including fleece, stay warm when wet, but can be bulky. And electric is heavy and pricey, and batteries run out.
  • Waterproof and breathable: Fabric that keeps out the wind and the wet while also breathing makes for a warmer, drier you. Wind is easy to block. For waterproofing, look for a “water column” rating of 10,000 mm (the height of a one-inch-wide column of water when the fabric at the base leaked in a test), or more. For staying dry, especially when active, breathability is equally important. How fast water vapour moves from the inside to the outside of a jacket determines how wet you feel. There’s no one rating system for breathability, but here are two tips: the more waterproof, the less breathable; and in waterproof gear, the more breathable, the pricier it is.
  • Fit: For effective layering, clothes should fit like Russian nesting dolls, each layer looser than the last.

Categories
Cottage Life

A master collector’s tips for decorating with your best finds

Photo by Derek Shapton

Dyan Kirshenbaum, collector extraordinare, is responsible for all of the treasures that bring her cottage to life, including her decades-old collection of handmade miniature houses and cabins. Here are her best tips for finding and decorating with objects and art you love.

ON COLLECTING…

  • Trust your taste. “Buy what you like.”
  • Be spontaneous. “I’m into instant gratification. If you see something you like, get it. You may find a better one if you keep looking. But this one works for you—now go enjoy it.”
  • Don’t focus on monetary value. “Anything can be considered valuable.
  • Live with what you love, and it will always have value.”
  • Don’t assume that you need big bucks to collect. “Over the years, I’ve collected at every price range. I never went above my station.”
  • No price tag? No problem. “Even if it doesn’t look like something is for sale, ask. Great acquisitions happen that way.”
  • Don’t sweat the bartering. “Before I start, I’m okay with the price. Then I usually take one stab at it, and a deal is struck. Everyone’s happy. You bring the karma with the object; you don’t want to taint it.”
  • Have a sense of humour. “Don’t take collecting too seriously. Enjoy it, but don’t let it grip you.”

…AND DISPLAYING

  • Mix it up. “It’s more fun if the collection isn’t together.” Five ’60s pop-art lamps in one room make it look like the cottage needs redecorating; one looks stylish.
  • Instead of lining up like with like, link pieces visually using colour, shape, or a common element. “Putting together the puzzle is fun.”
  • Think contrast too. Evocative blackand- white photos of Dyan’s parents jump out when hung in a grouping that includes other things. She mixes in a classic Mountie shot, a naive painting of a fisherman, and a Snakes-and-Ladders board.
  • Use what you collect. Her “bucket benches”—originally used for milk pails—are pressed into service to hold everything from books to blankets. The dogs snooze on collectible quilts. “And you might not even notice I collect hooked rugs because they’re on the floors.”
  • Don’t be a slave to your things. “If something gets damaged or breaks, it’s just stuff.”
  • Edit. “I tell friends who can’t bear to part with anything they’ve inherited, ‘Choose the one you love the best and let go of the rest.’ ”
  • Relax. “Our bedside tables aren’t beautiful, but they work. It all doesn’t have to be perfect.”
  • Lose the fear. “People ask me if I think something will work in their place. If you love it,get it. There are no mistakes.”

See more of Dyan’s cottage finds and read the full story from our Spring 2016 issue.

Buy, sell, rent, dream

Get The Key, our weekly newsletter on all things cottage real estate

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

4 mouse-proofing strategies wacky enough to work

By Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock

Got mice? Desperate times call for wildly desperate rodent-proofing. We ran four extreme strategies past the experts to find out if these wacky moves could actually work. (The answers will surprise you.)

1. Install a live owl
Or some other wild predator. A weasel. A family of martens. A snake. Maybe all of them at the same time.

Would it work? Sure would. “The presence of a predator in the cabin would deter mice from seeking refuge in the first place,” says Tom Sullivan, a professor emeritus of wildlife ecology and conservation at UBC.

Feasible-o-meter says Low. You might just be trading one bad roommate for another, possibly worse, roommate—one that regurgitates all the time and, by the way, isn’t actually that wise.

Cottage Q&A: Where did all the mice go?

2. Ditch the cottage; build a concrete bunker

The rest of the lake will hate you, but when the Doomsday Clock strikes midnight—vindicated!

Would it work? Well, yes. It’s not likely that mice could gnaw through a concrete wall, says Gary Ure of Second Nature Wildlife Management in Gananoque, Ont. Unfortunately, they could gnaw through everything else. So a windowless, doorless bunker, with no plumbing, electricity, or air supply, would really be the way to go.

Feasible-o-meter says Low. You’d never get a permit. (Pfft. Building officials.)

6 secrets to successful mouse trapping

3. Source tons of cats. No, wait. Source tons of cat urine
And spray it all over the place. Gather used kitty litter in decorative bowls, and set them out like potpourri.

Would it work? Not reliably. “Mice may avoid predator odours for a while, but longevity and consistency of repellency has so far eluded us,” says Sullivan. “I have worked on this problem for many years.”

Feasible-o-meter says Medium. Because the man’s not giving up: “I still think the idea has great potential,” says Sullivan.

Cottage Q&A: How do I keep mice out of my ATV?

4. Establish a decoy building
You’ve heard of the Decoy Wallet, right?

Would it work? Yes. If your somewhat mouse-proofed cottage is beside one that is not mouse-proofed at all, the mice will go for the easier target. Mice are opportunistic, says Ure. “They’re like us. Or maybe we’re like them.”

Feasible-o-meter says High. But only if your close neighbours are the laziest humans on earth.

Build it, fix it, get it done!

Get Dockside DIY, for tips on how to maintain your cottage…and then some

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

Cottage Q&A: Should we consider a metal roof?

By martyweil/Shutterstock

We have a three-season cottage with a cathedral ceiling. It will soon be time to replace our asphalt shingles. Should we consider a metal roof?—John, via email

Metal—strong, lightweight, low maintenance, long lasting, and weather resistant—is absolutely worth considering. Just do your research before you pull the trigger on this upgrade. “Metal roofing is great, but it comes with a warning,” says Jim Watson of J. Watson Roofing Consulting on Vancouver Island. “Don’t go there without a proper assessment first.”

No surprises here: “If a metal roof is installed incorrectly, the chances of it failing are much higher,” says Max Guerra, the general manager of New Steel Roofers in Hamilton, Ont. That’s an extra-hard kick in the pants if you’ve just spent thousands of dollars on something that was supposed to last 50 years or more.

Get to know 9 different roof types

Get a reputable roof contractor with expertise in metal. “It’s a specialized area of installation,” says Curtis Sinclair, a Calgary-based national senior project manager with General Roofing Systems Canada. And architectural standing-seam roofing, which he says is common for cottages, “is a particularly specialized category.”

According to both Watson and Sinclair, one potential issue with metal roofs is condensation buildup. “They tend to sweat from underneath,” says Sinclair. No bigs, if you plan around that with proper ventilation. Sinclair recommends this general calculation: one square foot of ventilation per 300 sq. ft. of roof. Also, Guerra says that a synthetic, breathable vapour barrier over the entire roof can help prevent condensation damage to the decking.

How to deal with a leaky roof

Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Send it to answers@cottagelife.com.

Build it, fix it, get it done!

Get Dockside DIY, for tips on how to maintain your cottage…and then some

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

5 tips to split wood more efficiently

By stockcreations/Shutterstock

Over my first winter in northern B.C., my husband and I burned five cords of wood. As a smaller person, I was never going to get through all the log splitting on brute strength. So, I learned how to split wood more efficiently. Here are five things to try before buying an electric log splitter.

1. Use a lighter axe. And heavier boots Most people split firewood with a maul or a splitting axe. Mauls tend to be heavier (6 to 9 lbs), blunter, and wedge- shaped, and they typically have longer handles. Splitting axes are lighter (3 to 6 lbs) and sharper, usually with shorter handles. I used to split wood with an 8-lb maul. It took so much strength to heft the maul over- head that I had little power left to swing. Eventually, I hurt my back using it. When I switched to a Fiskars splitting axe (less than half the weight), my strikes became much easier and more controlled. However, I did have to learn how to swing faster to be effective. This, combined with the axe’s wickedly sharp edge, compelled me to start wearing steel-toed boots.

2. Read the log. Learning to read a round can make the difference between a single- strike split and you hacking away indefinitely. As a target for my axe, I visualize a straight line across the end of the log that avoids any knots. I also aim for existing cracks—that’s where the wood naturally wants to split.

3. Work in cold temperatures. I’ve found that wood splits much more easily in freezing temperatures—the colder the better. The super-human feeling you get when a log explodes in one blow makes it worth braving -30°C.

8 ways to safely chop and store firewood

4. Avoid wet wood. Make sure your wood is properly seasoned. Splitting wet wood is much harder. You can check by splitting a piece to see if the inside is dry to the touch.

5. Get a wedge. With large-diameter or knotty rounds, my splitting axe doesn’t always cut it. This is when I’ll bring out “The Persuader,” our aptly nicknamed splitting wedge. Just be sure to use a sledge (not the back of your axe) to hammer in the wedge.

How to avoid spreading invasive species through firewood

This article was originally published in the September/October 2022 issue of Cottage Life.

Build it, fix it, get it done!

Get Dockside DIY, for tips on how to maintain your cottage…and then some

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

Serve up a Cherry Manhattan

Photo by Evgeny Karandaev/Shutterstock

This delightful Cherry Manhattan is a favourite at Amy Rosen’s cottage. Created by her sister-in-law, Deborah Cohen, it is a festive crowd-pleaser.

Cherry Manhattan

These stirred Cherry Manhattans are delightful. Best enjoyed by the lake at sunset.

No ratings yet
Print Recipe

Course Drinks

Servings 1 serving

Ingredients

  

  • 2 oz bourbon
  • ¾ oz sweet vermouth
  • ¼ tsp cherry liqueur such as Luxardo
  • Homemade maraschino cherry see recipe, below or storebought

Instructions

 

  • To a chilled cocktail mixing glass, add a few ice cubes, bourbon, vermouth, and cherry liqueur.
  • Gently stir, strain into a lowball glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Notes

Homemade Maraschino Cherries

Boil 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar in a pot for three to four minutes. Remove from heat. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice, and 1/2 cup maraschino cherry liqueur. Put 1 cup cherries (washed and pitted) in a Mason jar, and add liquid. Once cool, cover and refrigerate for at least three days. They will keep for a month in the fridge.

Keyword Amy Rosen, bourbon, Cherry Manhattan, Deborah Cohen, Drinks, Manhattan, maraschino cherry, vermouth
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

See more drinks for any occasion

4 non-alcoholic swaps for your favourite cocktails

Buy, sell, rent, dream

Get The Key, our weekly newsletter on all things cottage real estate

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

Should Ontario regulate short-term rentals? Here are the pros and cons

Photo by Billion Photos/Shutterstock

Municipalities from across Ontario have taken different approaches to regulating the short-term rental industry, and now, with many local governments taking action, some are wondering if it’s time for the province to get involved. The move to provincially regulate short-term rentals wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented—Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have both implemented their own form of short-term rental regulations. 

Jelena Vuckovic, a short-term rental owner in Tiny, Ont., says she would like to see short-term rentals regulated at a provincial level as a way for the government to eliminate unnecessary confusion between jurisdictions.

“Currently each municipality has the ability to regulate STRs in any way they see fit and regulations range from complete bans of STRs, to no regulation at all,” she said, in an email. Ontario could implement province-wide short-term rental health and safety standards to fill in regulatory gaps among municipalities, says Vuckovic. 

Steve Pomeroy, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Urban Research and Education at Carleton University, says there could be pros and cons to Ontario introducing province-wide short-term rental regulations. 

The main benefit, Pomeroy says, is that the province would have stronger authority to back up the legislation. “If someone is contravening a provincial law, the recourse is usually a little bit stronger than it would be for breaking a municipal bylaw,” says Pomeroy.

Provincial regulations could also ease the financial burden for municipalities, says Pomeroy. For instance, the province could absorb the responsibilities and costs of operating a short-term rental licensing program. While local governments typically charge fees to offset the cost of licensing programs, Pomeroy says he suspects the revenues generated by licensing fees often don’t cover the cost of running and enforcing the program itself. 

While the potential for the province to absorb responsibilities from the municipalities exists, Pomeroy says the inverse has been more common of late. “The provinces are downloading responsibilities to municipalities, particularly Ontario,” he says, noting that most municipalities lack the financial resources to take on extra duties. 

A lack of resources among local governments means enforcement of short-term rental regulations could still remain an issue, regardless of the province’s involvement, says Pomeroy. 

“It’s not the kind of thing we want to have the RCMP or provincial police coming around enforcing. It’s a bylaw enforcement kind of function, which tends to be staff at the municipal level,” he says. “The challenge really for the municipalities is having the resources to do it.”

Nova Scotia currently operates a provincial short-term accommodation licensing program. The province works with private hosting sites to ensure compliance and collects the data for municipalities to use while enforcing their own short-term rental and zoning bylaws.

Vuckovic says she thinks the Nova Scotia system would be fitting for Ontario, and could potentially take a load off overburdened municipalities. “I honestly think that’s gonna solve so many problems,” she says. “Not just for us, but for the smaller townships and towns. They don’t have the money, they don’t have the manpower to be doing this. And honestly, they should not be doing it themselves, this is too big.”

Feature Video


Categories
Cottage Life

More than 300 students cheated on their Ontario real estate license exam, says Auditor General

Miha Creative/Shutterstock

A new report found that more than 300 students in Humber College’s Real Estate Education program cheated on their licensing exams, much higher than the 34 initially discovered when the story broke last fall.

The report was conducted by Ontario’s Auditor General as a price performance review of the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO), the province’s regulatory body for the profession. When the cheating was first unveiled, both RECO and Humber didn’t specifically indicate how it happened, but the report found that the exam proctoring software was a key culprit. Most exams were done online and remotely, and the software couldn’t prevent screen-sharing or maintain supervision if there were technical issues, the report stated.

At the time the report was released, some of the students had already been working as real estate agents, mostly in the Toronto area. Ultimately, more than 50 were stripped of their licenses. With the revelation that there were hundreds more students who also cheated, a representative from RECO said they are working with Humber College to hold each one accountable. 

Anyone can check the status of a brokerage or salesperson through RECO’s online search tool, said Joseph Richer, RECO’s registrar. If someone does not come up, that means they are not registered to work in Ontario—the names of individuals who had their registration voided are also available on the site.

Richer stated that employers were also notified and are expected to take disciplinary steps in addition to reviewing deals that the individuals were involved in. He also recommended that buyers and sellers ask their respective lawyers to review transactions for errors. “If any transactions occurred after RECO registration was voided, this could be subject to prosecution,” he said. He reiterated that most of the Humber students were caught before they were able to register with RECO and start working.

In a statement, a media representative from Humber College said that the Auditor General “is reporting on a specific point in time and did not directly contact Humber for information.” They added that when the issue first arose, the college investigated students, worked with RECO, and “continues to ensure high standards around exam security and integrity.”

Upon the report’s release, a representative from Humber told The Globe and Mail that the school has added stricter measures for online exams, such as requiring students to have a second camera, and more rigorous security checks before the exam starts. However, the report alleged that RECO “has taken no steps to independently verify that the issues that led to the breaches have been satisfactorily addressed.”

With the reporting being an overall audit of the organization, several concerns were raised about its processes, such as the rigorousness of criminal background checks on realtors, the reporting system for ethics violations, or the ability to flag suspicious transactions.

Richer said the organization is committed “to increasing consumer confidence in the real estate industry,” and that the individuals who cheated “should not be allowed to compromise the integrity of the real estate profession as a whole.”

Buy, sell, rent, dream

Get The Key, our weekly newsletter on all things cottage real estate

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

How many moose are hiding in the woods?

2022 photo contest entry by Larry Dance.

Ever wonder how biologists count moose? These massive but elusive animals don’t make it easy. But it turns out the key to good population surveys starts with a good snowfall. Snowy days are essential to conducting annual moose surveys across northern and central Ontario, as far south as Haliburton and the Kawarthas. 

The inventories—done by low-flying aircraft—help the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) estimate populations for long-term management—an increasingly important task as climate change and host of other factors have imperilled moose in southern portions of their range.

The aerial counts are done using a standard protocol that’s used across North America: between 10 AM and 2 PM from December through mid-February, within 72 hours of a fresh snowfall of at least 30 cm (to make tracks more visible) and temperatures less than minus 5ºC (since moose are more active in the cold). 

Watch a moose gallop through waist-deep snow like it’s thin air

“The Ontario moose population has decreased 20 percent since 2004,” says Amanda Rantala, the administrative assistant to the regional director with the Northeast Region MNRF in Timmins. “Exact causes of population declines are not always clear, but multiple factors likely play a role including habitat, parasites, hunting, climate and predators. The ministry is exploring the potential for further science efforts to examine the impacts of some of these factors more closely.”

Rantala says the most significant declines have occurred in parts of northeastern and central parts of the province, including most of Ontario cottage country. But it’s not just here; similar patterns are occurring elsewhere along the southern fringes of moose habitat. Minnesota’s moose population has decreased by more than 50 per cent since 2006, in part because of increasing numbers of white-tailed deer, which carry a brainworm parasite that’s lethal to moose. In Maine, warmer winters are being blamed for eruptions of winter ticks, which threaten the survivorship of young moose by causing hair loss.   

Aerial surveys are conducted on a rotational basis in Ontario Wildlife Management Units (WMU) known to support moose. Based on aerial observation of moose signs in the surveys, biologists make population estimates for low-, medium- and high-moose density habitat, which can then be extrapolated across the entire WMU. Aerial surveys also allow biologists to estimate the number of bulls, cows, and calves within an area.

Ultimately, moose aerial estimates are plotted against management goals to allow biologists to assign hunting quotas for various parts of the province. Rantala says moose in Ontario’s cottage country are within population objective ranges, with about 1,300 moose in the Parry Sound area, 339 in Muskoka and 458 in Haliburton. The moose population for the entire province is around 91,000—about the same as the number of moose hunters. 

Meet the mighty moose

A voice from the wilderness

Get The Great Outdoors, our biweekly brief on all things nature

Sign up here

Categories
Cottage Life

Cyberattacks on municipalities have cost tax payers a reported $379 million since 2020

Photo by PabloLagarto/Shutterstock

In December 2019, an employee at the municipality of WestLake-Gladstone in Manitoba clicked a malicious link in a fraudulent email, triggering a series of cyberattacks that led to the municipality losing over $450,000.

In November 2020, Saint John, N.B. paid $2.9 million to overhaul its website after fraudsters got a hold of the municipality’s network.

In January 2021, Durham Region, Ont., had several gigabytes of personal data stolen and ransomed.

The list goes on—Wasaga Beach, Ont., Midland, Ont., Stratford, Ont., and other municipalities have all been targeted by cyberattacks within the last four years. Between 2020 and 2021, scams and fraud jumped 130 per cent, with Canadians losing a reported $379 million, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC).

“Municipalities are a very good target for bad guys,” says Ali Ghorbani, a cyber security professor at the University of New Brunswick and the director of the Canadian Institute for Cyber Security.

The reason municipalities are so attractive, Ghorbani says, is that they’re dealing with sums of money far more substantial than an individual, often reaching into the millions. They also store citizens’ private data through bylaw, permitting, and other services.

The most common attack is through ransomware, Ghorbani says. Fraudsters gain access to a municipality’s network through social engineering, which involves manipulating someone into performing an act or divulging confidential information.

Phishing scams fall under this category. An employee within the municipality will receive an email from a seemingly trustworthy source. The email will contain a link. When the employee clicks on the link, ransomware is installed on the municipality’s network.

“They’re establishing admin access to the infrastructure, and then they take over the data and encrypt it so no one else can open it,” Ghorbani says.

The fraudsters then hold this private data ransom, threatening to release it unless the municipality pays them a sum of money. It’s the same technique fraudsters use to target individuals, but with higher stakes.

“The municipalities often have no choice but to give in to the ransom attackers and pay for the data to be released,” Ghorbani says. “It’s not like with one person who may decide, ‘I’m not paying this amount.’ Municipalities have an obligation to bring back the data.”

In WestLake-Gladstone, the fraudsters got inside the municipality’s system through a phishing scam and started draining bank accounts, converting the money into Bitcoin and making it disappear. In Saint John, fraudsters froze all services on the municipality’s website, demanding $17 million in Bitcoin to release the network. In Durham Region, fraudsters got in through the municipality’s use of Accellion File Transfer Appliance software, a product that lead to a mass spree of cyberattacks around the world.

Each of these municipalities would have had a set of cyber security protocols, but they failed. In Canada, there aren’t any blanket cyber security rules municipalities are mandated to follow. The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) offers a cyber security toolkit, providing advice and highlighting key security considerations. But the degree of protection falls to the municipality.

This can prove problematic for rural municipalities. A municipality like WestLake-Gladstone will have a much smaller budget than an urban centre like Toronto, meaning it has less money to spend on cyber security. Tech talent also tends to flock to jobs in big cities, forcing rural municipalities to pay more to attract experts. “There’s no IT or expert capacity in those areas,” Ghorbani says.

But this doesn’t mean rural governments have to be left unprotected. For tight-budgeted municipalities looking to enhance their online defences, Ghorbani suggests sharing the cost of hiring a cyber security expert with other nearby municipalities. “They share fire trucks when there is a fire, why don’t they share when it comes to cybersecurity?” he says. Two or three nearby municipalities could pool their resources to have an expert come in for several months to overhaul their IT department and make sure their infrastructure is up to date.

Education is another key deterrent. Training municipal staff and citizens can make a big difference, Ghorbani says. “Then they have informed employees that use their system properly.”

To educate staff and citizens, Ghorbani recommends publishing education tips on the municipality’s website and offering a workshop every few months on how to stay safe.

“Municipalities shouldn’t have the mindset that they’re small, so they’re not going to spend money on doing anything because they may not be a target,” Ghorbani says. “They miss the point that bad guys don’t really care. They take whatever they can. In fact, a smaller fish is more attractive to them because it’s less publicity than attacking a big fish.”

Need more news?

Find your cottage state of mind all year round with our weekly newsletter, Dockside

Sign up here