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Cottage Life

The definitive ranking of the Great Lakes (according to Donovan Woods)

Photo by Bree Fisher / Photo collage by Taylor Kristan

Every April, Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods releases a ranking of the Great Lakes on Twitter, as he has for the last several years.

Needless to say, when the rankings are released, people have thoughts. Cottagers and non-cottagers alike stumble over actually-no-you’re-wrongs faster than their fingers can fly across the keyboard. It could be because there isn’t much movement on the ranking from year to year (Lake Erie lovers, you’re in for a tough go), or that personal bias is so strong. I mean, who is this guy to rank the Great Lakes anyway?

 

Perhaps what adds to the mystique of this controversial list is that once it’s posted, Donovan is mum on the subject. You won’t find him defending his choices against replies desperately seeking explanation or fielding polite questions about his process. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his reasons or that he hasn’t thoroughly thought his decision through. And while he won’t reply on Twitter, he would talk to us. We sat down with Donovan to find out why he ranks the lakes as he does and, more importantly, what does he have against Lake Erie?

**

Alysha Vandertogt (AV): So, tell me—how did you start doing this? What inspired you to start ranking the Great Lakes?

Donovan Woods (DW): Well, my parents’ front yard is on Lake Huron, I’m from Sarnia, Ont. I’m partial to all the lakes, but I did grow up on Lake Huron. I try to keep my own personal bias out of my ranking, although I do think Lake Huron is the best by a long shot. But I’ve just always loved the lakes, I love ’em! My friends and I have always loved them.

We like to argue about the rankings of things. You know, what are the top five dinosaurs or the most classic farm animals. They really are quite interesting arguments. The number one farm animal is obviously cow. But then there are people who want duck in there, people who want sheep in there. There’s really not a lot of room for that, all of these things can become contentious.

AV: I was going to ask you about whether or not your upbringing and Sarnia might have influenced the rankings.

DW: Listen, I’ve swam in all of the Great Lakes. I don’t have any real training in the field, but I feel like I’m as good as anybody to judge them.

I’ll tell you, the first time I posted a ranking, I was so surprised by how contentious it was. People were very, very angry.

AV: I was looking back at tweets from years previous, and you even had a tweet in there about how you didn’t expect to have to block people as a result of ranking the Great Lakes.

DW: Yeah, exactly!

AV: How did you feel when people got so fired up? People were in your replies, they’re quote tweeting you. People are taking this really seriously.

DW: To me, that’s the funniest part. You can become an authority on something just by saying you are. My favourite part is when the tweet reaches a certain level of popularity—and it has all three years—somebody eventually goes, ‘Who is this person, never heard of him.’ And when you start getting those tweets, that’s when you know it’s going good, things are heating up.

Everybody says, ‘How could Superior not be number one with the name,’ but I would hazard a guess that the name Superior has something more to do with how it’s the highest and the furthest west. But I try not to get into the weeds with people on that. Anybody who has been to Lake Superior knows it’s beautiful, of course, but it’s not very useful. It’s really cold all the time.

People’s opinions are interesting, but, at times, sad. It’s sad that people would think that Lake Erie deserves to be number one. Anybody who knows anything knows it’s not true.

Ontario has an argument, to a certain degree. If you’ve ever been to the Sandbanks beaches, it’s beautiful around there. And a lot of Canadians have a bias against Lake Michigan because it has an American-centric name, but Lake Michigan is just gorgeous. Very Lake Huron-like. Some people want to make the argument that they’re the same body of water technically, I don’t go in for that.

AV: I think when people think Lake Ontario they think of what Lake Ontario is right around Toronto or Hamilton.

DW: Justifiably. But that’s not fair to the lake, there’s a whole top area that’s much better than those areas.

I try not to argue too much. People have their passionate beliefs, but they are wrong. By and large, my ranking is correct. I would die on the hill for it.

AV: You’ve mentioned before that you don’t really like to explain why you’ve put certain lakes over others. Is there a particular reason for that, or you don’t necessarily want to get into it with people, given the amount of people that reply to the tweet.

DW: I don’t think it’s very constructive. I don’t feel any need to defend it because it’s just one person’s opinion. All year long, I’m thinking about the Great Lakes, their movement, what’s going on. Maybe something will happen eventually that would change the ranking, but I don’t know what it is. I just put the list up and that’s it, that’s my duty done.

AV: Earlier you talked about swimming conditions. What is it that you take into account that makes the ranking the way that it is?

DW: This is tricky. This is stuff that I don’t love to get into, but I do think it’s a general sense of the usefulness of the lake. Beauty is a really important part of the equation. In general, it’s an ineffable quality that is in the zeitgeist. This year, for example, Lake Michigan featured heavily in the show Station 11, where it has a sort of mythic quality. That almost put it into a more prominent position, but in the end it didn’t feel right. It still felt like it had to be Huron, Superior, Michigan.

AV: One of your tweets from a previous year said that Lake Erie was last, by a lot. Not that I’m a Lake Erie apologist, but what is it about Lake Erie that has it so firmly in last place?

DW: I’m not particularly fond of any of the cities on Lake Erie, I have found the swimming to be lacklustre, I’m not fond of that part of Ontario.

AV: Have your feelings about a particular lake changed since since you started doing the rankings?

DW: It’s possible that a decade ago, I would have felt the same way as people that think Lake Michigan should be lower. Michigan really came up for me in my 20s when I spent a lot of time there. I’m a lot more fond of Lake Ontario even now than three years ago when I first did the first ranking. But they’re all great—fourth out of five is still pretty good. It’s really going to be something if the ranking ever moves, I wonder if it will.

AV: Is there anything that could push one ahead of the other? I see that there was like a Lake Superior account that was tweeting at you about the ranking and saying that it wanted to make some moves.

DW: People say to me, ‘Oh, how could you ignore the Lake Superior tweet?’ That sounds like a person pretending to be a lake. I’m a grown man, using his own name, ranking the Great Lakes. A guy pretending to be a lake, does that sound like an authority to you? Nonsense.

AV: How do you feel about people who are trying to throw in completely off-the-board picks to be included in the ranking? They seem to take the “great” name very liberally. 

DW: There’s always someone who wants to tell you that Great Slave Lake or Great Bear Lake exists, we all know that. That’s not what we’re talking about though.

AV: It’s pretty definitive. People kind of have to accept that these ones are the Great Lakes, because they’re called that. As a society, we’ve acknowledged that these ones are the Great Lakes.

DW: I was writing a song the other day with a guy from the U.K., and I was telling him about the ranking. And I said, ‘You know of the Great Lakes, right?’ And he said, ‘Of course.’ This is a guy who grew up on the Isle of Wight in the U.K., and he knew immediately. So, these are important lakes, right? He’s never heard of Great Slave Lake, let’s put it that way.

**

Well, Lake Erie, better luck next year.

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Cottage Life

Interest rates just went up—here’s what it means for cottage country

Photo by Shutterstock/AevanStock

On April 13, the Bank of Canada raised its policy interest rate by half a percentage point to one per cent—the biggest increase since May 2000. The move comes after Canada’s inflation rate hit a 31-year high of 6.7 per cent.

“Much of the inflation we’re experiencing today is coming from international factors. The war in Ukraine has pushed commodity prices higher. It’s further disrupted global supply chains, and that’s the principal reason why our inflation forecast is revised up,” said Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem during a press conference.

Canada’s inflation target usually sits between one to three per cent. Six per cent puts us well over, causing the price of goods and services to go up. This is because inflation is caused by an inbalance between supply and demand. Throughout the pandemic, demand for certain commodities, such as oil, dropped, so there was less incentive to drill for new oil reserves, says Angelo Melino, an economics professor at the University of Toronto. “But when the world economy warmed up, we were caught with less [oil] supply than we’ve normally had.”

The same goes for other products. During the pandemic, everyone bought items they could use from home, such as Peloton bikes and free weights. But now people are returning to gyms, bars, restaurants, theatres, etc., resulting in service inflation, Melino says. The sudden shifts in demand cause supply chain constraints, which are now being exacerbated by the war in the Ukraine.

By raising interest rates, the Bank of Canada said it expects to reach its inflation target of two per cent by 2024. Higher interest rates discourage people from borrowing money, which reduces spending, slowing down the economy, and putting the brakes on inflation. The only issue is if the Bank of Canada raises interest rates by too much, Melino says, it can stop the economy from growing and create a recession. He expects the Bank of Canada’s policy interest rate to rise from one to two per cent over the next year.

This has a major impact on mortgage rates. When the pandemic first hit Canada in March 2020, the Bank of Canada slashed its policy interest rate to 0.25 per cent in an attempt to bolster the economy. Low mortgage rates combined with the ability to work remotely and the desire to escape urban areas made cottages hot commodities during the pandemic. This demand has driven up cottage prices. In fact, Royal LePage reported that the national aggregate price of a recreational property in 2021 jumped 27 per cent.

But rising mortgage rates are expected to cool the real estate market. “It doesn’t directly affect the housing market in the sense of prices, but it does affect the buying,” says Lisa Hannam, the executive editor of MoneySense. “We are currently in a seller’s market, so it does seem a little bleak if you’re trying to get into it.”

The tapering off of cottage prices won’t happen overnight. It’s expected to be a drawn-out process, which could lead to some disconnect between buyers and sellers. “We have sellers who are holding on to the 2020 and 2021 prices,” Hannam says, “and then you have the buyers who are thinking about 2023, 2024 prices. So, you’re probably going to negotiate a lot more than you expected.”

If you are planning to buy a cottage, Hannam says that you shouldn’t solely fixate on mortgage rates. “Always think about your long term goals, and don’t make emotional purchases. Look at the hard facts of buying real estate. There are things in addition to the mortgage and the down payment. You have to look at property taxes, maintenance, electricity, phone bills, cottage association fees, and cottages tend to be older than a primary residence, so there may be renovations,” she says.

“The mortgage rate changes will come into play, but don’t get sidetracked from the overall cost of a cottage.”

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Cottage Life

Three urgent product recalls issued for Canadian Tire, Home Depot, and Best Buy

Photo by Shutterstock

A number of big-brand stores in Canada, including Best Buy, Canadian Tire, and Home Depot, have been hit with product recalls as Health Canada urges consumers to stop using certain items immediately.

Canadian Tire issued a recall, asking consumers to return any 043-5120 Mastercraft 7500W/240V Electric Utility Workshop/Garage Heaters w/Remote Control and Thermostat, Black, purchased from its stores. Similar to the Insignia air fryers, Canadian Tire said in its recall notice that the workshop/garage heater runs the risk of overheating, posing a burn and fire hazard.

Mastercraft Workshop/Garage Heater
Photo Courtesy of Canadian Tire

The Canadian Tire recall is batch-related, meaning it only affects Mastercraft workshop/garage heaters with the date codes: 08/2020, 09/2020, and 12/2020. You can find the date code on the Intertek sticker pasted on the product.

If you purchased an affected workshop/garage heater, you can return it to your local Canadian Tire store for an exchange or a refund. If you have any other questions, you can reach out to Canadian Tire’s customer relations at 1-800-387-8803.

Health Canada issued a recall for a 12/2 NMD90 75M Romex SIMpull cable (yellow), model number 47175576, sold at Home Depot. The recall affects cable batch numbers 616295, 616296, 616297, 616298 and 616301 with a time stamp between 12:41 and 18:02. You can find the time stamp printed directly on the cable.

Romex Yellow Electrical Cable
Photo Courtesy of Health Canada

The reason for the recall is that the yellow electrical cable’s neutral wire is a 14-gauge wire rather than a 12-gauge wire, as specified on the product’s stamp. This could impair the cable’s performance and prevent it from meeting safety codes and standards, said Health Canada in its recall notice.

Home Depot has sold approximately 1,734 spools of the cable in Canada, with all of the affected product sold between October 19, 2021, and October 29, 2021. As of April 8, Home Depot had not received any reports of incidents or injuries caused by the cable.

If you purchased a spool of the affected cable, Health Canada advises that you immediately stop using the product. If you have any questions about the cable, you can contact Southwire Canada’s toll-free support line at 1-833-408-0463, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

Health Canada also issued a recall for Insignia Digital Air Fryers, Insignia Analog Air Fryers, and Insignia Digital Air Fryer Ovens sold at Best Buy and through Amazon and Ebay. The affected products include model numbers: NS-AF32MBK9-C, NS-AF53MSS0-C, NS-AF55DBK9-C, NS-AF50MBK9-C, NS-AFO6DSS1-C, and NS-AF50DBK0-C.

Insignia Air Fryer Oven
Photo Courtesy of Health Canada

“The product can overheat, posing a potential burn and fire hazard,” Health Canada said in its recall notice. Between November 2018 and April 2022, Best Buy sold approximately 138,570 units of the affected air fryers and air fryer ovens in Canada and 634,522 in the U.S.

As of March 25, the company had received 36 incident reports in Canada regarding the affected products, including one report of minor injury and 68 incident reports in the U.S., including one report of minor injury.

If you purchased a recalled air fryer or air fryer oven from Best Buy, Health Canada advises that you immediately stop using the product and arrange to return the air fryer by registering online on Best Buy’s website or calling 1-877-650-5411 any time between 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday.

Consumers will receive an in-store credit at Best Buy equivalent to the cost of the air fryer product. Returns don’t require a purchase receipt, but Best Buy asks that you arrange the return through its website or over the phone instead of bringing the product into a store.

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Cottage Life

The ultimate guide to upgrading your cottage dock

Spring is here, and now is the ideal time to inspect the dock at your recreational property to see what maintenance or repairs may be required before cottage season kicks off. In addition to normal wear and tear, harsh Canadian winters can really wreak havoc on wooden docks, especially if you have a permanent dock that can’t be removed from the water during the winter months.  

Beyond basic maintenance, this is also an opportunity to think about how you can upgrade your existing dock this year to minimize the need for repairs in the future and improve your enjoyment of the dock space. For example, you can update its look and feel by replacing wooden deck boards with Deckorators Voyage Composite high-performance decking, available exclusively at Home Hardware Building Centre and Home Building Centre stores. This could also be the time to extend or expand your existing dock, or to install exciting new accessories and features. 

Here are the key considerations to keep in mind when upgrading your cottage dock.

High-performance materials

The ideal dock is good looking, easy to maintain, and can go for many years without requiring major repairs. Your deck boards should be made of a material that will offer good traction, virtually no water absorption, and comes with a multi-year warranty. 

Unfortunately, wood and most composite decking actually aren’t ideal for use around water. But Deckorators Voyage Composite Decking is a mineral-based composite that is designed for use on and around water, making it a great choice for docks and pool decks. Voyage Composite Decking, which you can find at Home Hardware Building Centre and Home Building Centre stores, offers a look similar to wood but boasts a splinter-free surface and almost no water absorption. This high-performance material comes with an industry-leading warranty, and it’s available in four different widths and multiple colours. Winter after winter, you won’t have to worry about sagging or cracking boards, and it’s resistant to stains and fading. 

Size and shape 

Whether you have a permanent dock, pipe dock, floating dock, or lift-up dock, you want to first confirm that you have the right type of dock for your shoreline. If you’re thinking of changing the size or design of your existing dock, factors to keep in mind include how it currently sits and moves in the water, the waves and wind in the area, the potential views, and how much space you want or need. For example, if you have multiple boats, you may want to consider a T or U-shaped dock instead of a standard rectangular shape. 

Required permits

You don’t need a permit to do small maintenance and repairs like replacing rotting and cracking deck boards. But be aware that any changes or additions to your existing dock may require permits and approvals, depending on your plans and where your cottage is located. You will want to contact the local municipality, along with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) if you’re in Ontario. They should be able to give you more information and let you know if there are specific regulations or approvals you may need before proceeding.

Essential accessories and hardware

You can improve the look and utility of your dock by adding accessories and updating the existing hardware as needed. Small improvements like replacing worn-out dock bumpers or installing a new swim ladder can instantly refresh an older dock, while dedicated extras like a dock box or canoe and kayak rack are great for increasing storage and improving access to your water toys and essentials. 

Thinking of upgrading your cottage dock? Learn more about the benefits of building with Voyage Composite Decking, available at Home Hardware Building Centre and Home Building Centre stores.

 

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Cottage Life

Where to shop local for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts

Photo by @huckleberrysparrysound

Psst! Mother’s Day is this weekend (and Father’s Day isn’t far away). Still don’t have a gift? Don’t fret—cottage country is filled with gift shops so that you can find the perfect something for the mother and father figures in your life. You know, that elusive thing they didn’t know they needed? Here’s where you can shop local:

West Wind Gallery and Gifts in Bancroft

West Wind is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year—what better way to help them mark the milestone than by popping by to pick up the perfect gift? Choose from casual clothing, including pyjamas that get rave reviews, cottage supplies like eco-friendly bug-repelling candles, dog- and cat-themed accessories, books, games, gifts for nature lovers, and fine art.

Old Hastings Mercantile and Gallery in Ormsby

Ormsby may only have a population of 20 people, but you wouldn’t know it from the wealth of treasures found in the Old Hastings Mercantile and Gallery, which is absolutely stuffed with antiques, Canadian arts and crafts, cottage-themed gifts and (this is very important) candy. To make it easy to focus your search for the perfect present, the shop is arranged by theme rooms, including Books and Music, the Christmas Room, the Gallery, and the Garden and Outdoor Room.

Village Green Originals in Westport

Clothes, shoes, accessories, home decor, books, calendars and puzzles are just a few of the gifts you can find at Village Green Originals. Open since 1985, Village Green has been well known for carrying popular, high-quality brands like Viking and Joybees shoes, Trinket infinity scarves, and Madawaska Coffee Company.

Huckleberry’s in Parry Sound

Huckleberry’s is tucked into a two-storey retail shop in Parry Sound and offers in-person and online shopping experiences. It’s an ideal place to pick up classy, cottage-themed items, including bright dishcloths, sophisticated-yet-rustic tableware, low-key bedding, and even classic Muskoka chairs in a rainbow of colours. Not to be missed: their line of soy candles in scents like dockside lemonade, maple sugar bush, paper birch, and, not surprisingly, campfire.

Ethel Curry Gallery in Haliburton

If you’re looking for Canadian art and handmade items that have been inspired by the Haliburton Highlands, look no further than the Ethel Curry Gallery. Artists featured in the gallery include painters, jewellers, potters, fibre artists, photographers, sculptors, and many more. Along with providing a spot for artists to sell their creations, the Ethel Curry Gallery also supports local art events, including pop-up shows and studio open houses.

Golden Gallery in Tobermory

Tucked away at the end of a winding stone path, with a view overlooking Little Tub Harbour and close to the spectacular views that the Bruce Peninsula is famous for, it’s no surprise that Golden Gallery Tobermory is a spot to come and be inspired. While there are several artists featured at the gallery, pay particular attention to the paintings by owner Kent Wilkens, which highlight the natural beauty of the Bruce.

Iroqrafts in Six Nations of the Grand River (Ohsweken)

Open in 1959, Iroqrafts is the largest and oldest arts and crafts store in Six Nations. While they sell craft supplies—fabric, ribbons, beads, leather, and soapstone—they also have a large selection of gifts, including jewellery, beadwork, sculpture, candles, stained glass, and leather items like boots and moccasins.

Unconventional Moose in Tweed

Two Maritimers, a “local Tweed lad,” an entourage of mannequins and a life-size moose statue named Cosmos make Unconventional Moose a spot worth visiting. Featuring a wide range of items on a wildlife theme, the shop was, at one time, known as the Mohawk Trading Post. Now situated a little ways west of the original location, the Unconventional Moose also offers accommodations—so you can shop for gifts and stay for the view of the Skootamatta River.

Mariposa Market in Orillia

Mariposa Market has lots and lots of baked goods: doughnuts, fritters, cinnamon buns, cupcakes, cookies—but baked goods aren’t all the store is famous for. In fact, this historic spot, which began life as a general store in 1859, has a bakery, two cafes, and two stores that sell everything from syrup and preserves to loungewear, candy, and toiletries. If you can’t find the perfect gift here, you probably aren’t looking hard enough.

Native Renaissance in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory (Deseronto)

Highlighting Indigenous art and gifts for more than 40 years, Native Renaissance is a worth the trip if you’re looking for soapstone sculptures. You’ll find the work of Mohawk stone sculptor Thomas B. Maracle and find a gift shop full of sculptures, moccasins, books, jewellery, clothing, and toys. And if you get hungry after browsing? There’s a cafe on-site as well.

Ellënoire in Dundas

If you’re looking for luxurious handmade bath products, essential oil blends, custom-blended perfumes, or a range of curly-hair products, look no further than Ellënoire, an elegant local shop tucked into the Old Dundas Post Office in historic Dundas, Ontario. What began in 1994 with a small collection of bath products, the shop has grown to include a naturally curly hair salon and many products perfect for those who are “scents-itive” to fragrances.

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Cottage Life

Wild Profile: Meet the chestnut-sided warbler

By Agami Photo Agency/Shutterstock

The chestnut-sided warbler is an easy warbler to identify—despite the fact that North America is home to more than 50 species of the bird. At least, this guy is easy to ID if you know what to spot. In the spring and summer, when they’ve returned home to their cottage-country haunts after the winter in warmer parts of the world, both breeding males and females have a flashy chestnut stripe on their flanks. Chestnut-sided! Isn’t it helpful when a bird’s name just makes sense?

What does the chestnut-sided warbler sound like? 

If you can’t recognize this bird by its looks, you might recognize it by its calls. Beginning in May, males start belting out their love song from open, sunny spots. It sounds like “Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet-cha!” They’ll sing up to 4,000 times per day. Holy dedication—can you imagine doing anything 4,000 times per day? Once they’ve attracted the attention of a female chestnut-sided warbler, they’ll sing a different tune (literally): a territorial chant meant to tell other males to stay away from their home and their future wife.

Is the chestnut-sided warbler rare? 

Although this warbler’s numbers probably have declined in recent years—the same is true for many birds—chestnut-sided warblers are actually more common than they were in the 19th century. Because they prefer open areas, they actually benefitted from human practices such as logging. In some cases, their territories now nearly overlap with the yellow warbler (the two species are closely related). Yellow warblers look different, but their love songs are similar to a chestnut-sided warbler’s: “Sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet.” Family ties and all that.

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Cottage Life

Nature Canada leads campaign to designate PEC as a National Marine Conservation Area

Along the shore of Prince Edward County (PEC), the waters of Lake Ontario serve as a hotspot for bird watchers, nature lovers, and adventure seekers. But without safegaurds, this may not last. Lake Ontario is one of the least protected of North America’s Great Lakes, making it vulnerable to land development, runoff pollution, and invasive species. Nature Canada plans to change that.

In early March, the environmental organization launched a campaign calling on the provincial and federal governments to deem the region’s waters a National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA).

“Brighton to Wolf Island is the region that we’re looking at because it’s really important for a lot of biodiversity,” says Kelsey Scarfone, a policy and campaign manager with Nature Canada.

Main Duck Island
Photo by John Brebner

Similar to a land conservation area, the purpose of a NMCA is to achieve ecological sustainability in the area, promoting awareness and understanding, while also creating enjoyable experiences for visitors, says the Parks Canada website.

Blanding's Turtle
Photo by Ian Dickinson

The PEC area is of particular interest to Nature Canada because its home to 50 at-risk species, including the Blanding’s Turtle, Piping Plover, and the American Eel. It’s also an important location for migrating birds and butterflies, Scarfone says. “In the context of the Great Lakes, there’s such a dense population around them that little pockets of biodiversity hotspots, like the waters around the South Shore, are really key to protect because it’s a system that’s under a lot of pressure.”

On top of safeguarding the area, the NMCA would provide new resources for scientific study on fish habitats. Plus, the waters in the area are home to hundreds of shipwrecks, making it a historic and culturally significant location, Scarfone says.

If the area is designated a NMCA, it’ll prevent extractive and destructive practices from disturbing the ecosystem, such as bottom trawling, lake bed mining, oil and gas extraction, and dumping.

What it won’t change is how cottagers use the area, Scarfone says. The waters will still be open to recreational use, including swimming, paddling, surfing, motorboats, and even commercial fishing.

Stand-up Paddleboarder
Photo by Raymond Hui

“The ways that people interact with the lake will mostly stay the same,” Scarfone says. “In fact, it would bring a lot of reassurance and excitement to cottagers to know that all of the beauty and the reasons that they come to this area and go to the cottage is going to be preserved for future generations.”

Community groups have been advocating for several years to convert the area into a NMCA, Scarfone says. That’s what caught Nature Canada’s attention. The organization is lobbying Canada’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change as well as Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks, to make the designation happen.

“It’s a federal designation with Parks Canada, but because the Great Lakes are a shared jurisdiction between the provincial and federal governments, there would need to be a negotiated agreement between the province and Parks Canada to actually establish the site,” Scarfone says.

If the site were established, it would contribute to the federal government’s goal of conserving 25 per cent of Canada’s land and 25 per cent of its waters by 2025. “There’s actually a new proposed conservation reserve that’s in the final stages of being established on the south shore of Prince Edward County,” Scarfone says. “The National Marine Conservation Area could really complement existing work to date to protect this area.”

Photo by Corey Phillips

Setting up a NMCA won’t happen overnight. There will be consultations with Indigenous groups and local landowners before the designation is pushed through, Scarfone says. She predicts that it could take three to four years.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in supporting Nature Canada’s NMCA efforts, you can send a letter of support to both the provincial and federal governments through the organization’s website.

Read more: Documentary reveals plastic pollution a problem in Lake Ontario

Which Great Lake are you? Take our quiz

6 gorgeous cottages in Prince Edward County

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Cottage Life

Cottage Q&A: Feeding seagulls scraps

By Keith Pritchard/Shutterstock

We have a bald rock island a little ways from our cottage where we  take our fish guts. The seagulls eat it up as soon as we leave it. However, our neighbours have started leaving their fruits, vegetables, and eggshells on the island too. Do birds eat this?—Diane Robinson, French River, Ont.

Herring gulls or ring-billed gulls, a.k.a. seagulls, “will eat just about anything,” says Doug Tozer of Birds Canada. Fish guts, vegetables, french fries, energy bars, garbage, dead mice…bring it on. “But it’s best that they not come to rely on human food sources,” says Tozer. (Not even your discarded fish innards. Sorry.) 

“If they do, then large numbers of gulls might start to frequent a particular area when they otherwise wouldn’t,” he says. The birds could become nuisance wildlife. That’s annoying for the cottagers on the lake and ultimately not great for the gulls either. Plus, unlike seed-eating birds at bird feeders, “we don’t have good data on the health and survivorship of individual gulls that frequently feed on human leftovers
compared to their normal, natural food,” says Tozer.

You can’t control what your neighbours do, but as for your fish guts, you’re better off dropping them overboard in deep water, well away from shore, says Tozer. “This is often considered best practice for disposal.”

This article was originally published in the March/April 2022 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

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Cottage Life

Should you join your lake association?

By Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Q: “My cottage is on a good-sized lake with a public boat launch at one end. Lately I have heard rumblings from some neighbours who want to close the launch because they feel the lake is getting dangerous and too crowded with outsiders on weekends. Now they want me to join their group. I am relatively new to cottage life and don’t want to make waves. How should I handle this?”

A: “Never volunteer for anything” is a maxim said to have originated in either the U.S. military or as some radio propaganda from “Tokyo Rose” during WWII. And it’s good advice to follow when you are being recruited to join up with activists who essentially want to privatize a public lake. Signing up to help a legitimate lake association is one thing: you do some fundraising, monitor water quality, and educate fellow members about invasive phragmites and the dreaded round goby. There is usually an AGM to attend and probably a fun barbecue or fish fry on a summer weekend. Did you notice there wasn’t any mention of shutting down public launch ramps? That’s because real lake associations generally don’t try to exclude, enrage, and earn the everlasting enmity of fellow citizen taxpayers, which is exactly what you’ll get if you throw in with this splinter group of launch-closing NIMBYs. 

Their plan is wrongheaded in so many ways that I hardly know where to begin. But let’s start with something every cottager must surely know, namely, that with very few exceptions water bodies in Canada are Crown property, owned by either the federal or provincial government. Which is to say that they are public property, open to all citizens. Even people who are not privileged enough to own a cottage and a chunk of privately held shoreline on a lake. But as I have written many times before, certain people forget this fact and start to blur the lines between public and private property. This type of cottager, and they are legion, have come to believe that they own and control everything they can see in front of their domain. They shout and shake a fist at people fishing or having a swim off a boat in “their” bay because they’ve come to believe they actually own the lake.

These days it’s pretty well known that in order to gain traction for a particular issue, you invoke environmental protection. For example, let’s say my neighbour needs a minor variance so he can build a new garage. I am opposed to the idea because instead of seeing pretty trees from my upstairs toilet, I will have to look at his ugly garage. But of course I’d sound like a jerk if I brought my true concern before town council. So instead, I talk about how runoff diversion during the spring freshet will affect near-shore fish habitat. I talk about Blanding’s turtles and milkweed and the airspeed velocity of an unladen African swallow. That sort of thing. I think your neighbours are attempting the same old trick but substituting public safety for environmental altruism. They don’t like seeing other people using their lake, especially those “outsiders” getting on the water from the boat launch. 

I guess the first thing you have to ask yourself is whether there is a problem with unsafe boating on your lake. After all, many cottage lakes have serious trouble with inexperienced boaters, reckless behaviour, impaired operation, and speeding close to shore, among other dangers. But can you single out transient boaters who use the public launch as the sole perpetrators of this bad conduct? Given that many cottage lakes without any public access whatsoever still have their fair share of bad boaters, I’m guessing it would be pretty hard to pin 100 per cent of the blame on outsiders.

In theory, a municipality could decide to remove a public launch under pressure from a group of vocal cottage owners, but in reality it would be politically disastrous for any mayor or councillor to support such an action. 

Because you are a newbie cottager and probably unaware of the subtle workings of lake-dwelling life, I will pass on a small shred of knowledge. On every lake there is a minority of people who perceive themselves as local royalty. Some have lake ties that go back a century. Others are rookies like you, but imagine themselves to be more important than other mortals. The very best way for a new cottager to identify these creatures is to get involved with the local lake association, where all manner of gossip and opinion will be shared. If you are lucky, you’ll learn about scandal and intrigue on your very own lake. Most important, you’ll learn who to avoid. (When out of earshot, all the other cottagers on the lake refer to them as “that arsehole who thinks he owns the lake.”) Supporting the closure of your lake’s public ramp will place you squarely in the same boat with said arsehole and accomplish nothing but gain the loathing of visiting boaters and the local population, also known as your other neighbours. Word will travel impossibly fast. And when the boat launch gets shut down everyone in town, from the friendly massage therapist to the assistant manager at Dollarama, will say your name and spit on the ground. Life is hard enough without making an enemy out of your plow guy or an E.R. doctor. My advice: don’t be that person.

This article was originally published in the March/April 2022 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

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Cottage Life

East Coast expected to see biggest cottage price hike in Canada in 2022

Photo by Shutterstock/Dolores M. Harvey

Atlantic Canada’s cottage market is expected to remain hot in 2022. Tied with Quebec’s 15 per cent increase, the East Coast is predicted to have the highest recreational property price gain in Canada this year. That includes waterfront cottages, chalets, cabins, and even recreational land used for camper trailers. According to Royal LePage’s Recreational Property report, the average price in Atlantic Canada will rise from $237,000 to $272,550 in 2022.

Following the rest of the country’s cottage markets, the price of an East Coast cottage has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic. Closed borders compelled Canadians to look for domestic retreats, and since many cottage owners have held onto their properties throughout COVID, it has kept inventory low, driving up prices with multiple offers.

Nova Scotia’s market, in particular, has piqued the interest of buyers. Thanks to the province’s affordable prices, Nova Scotia has become a compelling location for Ontario and Quebec prospective owners who have been priced out of their local markets.

“It’s about 50/50,” says Corey Huskilson, a real estate agent in South Shore, N.S. “Maybe even more Nova Scotians, actually. But with regular residential homes, we’re seeing a lot more out-of-province buyers.”

Further out on the Atlantic coast, Newfoundland’s waterfront cottage market has also experienced a jump. Combined with Nova Scotia’s market, the two provinces saw a 39.3 per cent increase in the price of a waterfront cottage between 2020 and 2021, rising from $239,000 to $333,000.

Year-over-year increase of recreational property price in Nova Scotia in 2021

Nova Scotia’s waterfront properties were in demand in 2021. The Annapolis Valley, which is located between two mountain ranges on the western side of the province, near the Bay of Fundy, led the way with a 70 per cent increase. The average price of a cottage rose from $210,000 to $357,000.

Cape Breton, on Nova Scotia’s eastern coast, followed with a 31.6 per cent increase from $266,000 to $333,000. Finally, the South Shore, near Halifax, saw a 16.8 per cent price increase, jumping from $315,000 to $368,000.

Who are the buyers?

As Huskilson said, Nova Scotia’s cottage market has seen interest from both Ontario and Quebec, but that segment will likely taper off in 2022 due to the government introducing a new property tax and a deed transfer tax aimed at out-of-province buyers.

“People who have not just purchased but inherited properties are now going to be paying more than double their yearly expenses for taxes. It’s a big hit. You can’t just sit on it like you normally would. It’s a full-on liability for people,” Huskilson says.

Aside from out-of-province buyers, there’s a lot of interest from young Nova Scotian families, Huskilson says. This segment could continue to grow as remote work becomes more established and out-of-province buyers are dissuaded by the new taxes.

What’s selling and what isn’t?

Waterfront properties are a key commodity right now, both oceanfront and lakefront. Oceanfront properties are more popular as four-season homes or cottages, while lakefront properties are in demand among those looking to take advantage of recreational boating.

“They’re all moving,” Huskilson says. “Everything from three-season, non-insulated, small little camps to high-end cottages.”

Future predictions for Nova Scotia real estate

Even with the new taxes and the reopening of international borders, Huskilson expects 2022 to be a strong year for cottages.

“I think it will hit pretty similar till at least the fall,” he says. “I don’t see a whole lot of change. I see a lot more [cottages] coming on the market, but more buyers are coming out of the woodwork. So, I don’t think it’s going to switch to a buyers’ market by any means.”

Year-over-year increase of recreational property price in Newfoundland in 2021

According to the Royal LePage report, most of Newfoundland’s cottage market is around the island in the province’s Central Region. Between 2020 and 2021, the area’s waterfront cottages saw a 22.1 per cent price increase, raising the average cost from $131,000 to $160,000.

Who are the buyers?

Unlike Nova Scotia, Newfoundland hasn’t had the same attention from out-of-province buyers. Instead, cottages are being snapped up by locals in their 30s or older with secure incomes, says Glenn Larkin, a realtor in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. Since some sections of the island lack cell service, remote work hasn’t factored into driving sales, but the inability to travel has played a major role.

“People who have a good bit of equity in their house, now they’re saying, ‘Listen, we can’t travel to Florida, let’s let’s buy a summer cottage,’” Larkin says. During the pandemic, he even encountered some buyers who’d sold their Florida properties in favour of a local cottage.

Larkin isn’t convinced that the reopening of international borders in recent months has swayed too many Newfoundland buyers back to sunnier waters as the cottage market remains strong.

What’s selling and what isn’t

It’s not oceanfront that’s attracting cottagers in Newfoundland, it’s pond frontage. Rather than the large chains of lakes found in central Canada, the province features small ponds. Anything within a two-hour drive from St. John’s on a pond is popular, Larkin says.

“Those have sold very well, and have multiple offers, and are not on the market very long.”

Future predictions for Newfoundland real estate

Same as the rest of Canada, Newfoundland is experiencing a lack of inventory, especially in cottages, Larkin says. Compared to 2021, he feels there’s even less inventory on the market, but sales volume remains just as high.

Despite these trends, Larkin says he believes 2022 is going to be a changing of the seasons in terms of Newfoundland’s cottage real estate.

“Interest rates are getting hit. Gas is high. So, the problem you’re gonna run into is: I’m not going to buy a summer cottage that’s two hours away because the gas is too expensive to go to it,” he says. “It will have an effect. The farther [the cottage is] from St. John’s, the harder it’ll be to sell.”