There is one home in my long list of homes that deserves more than a passing mention and may very well get a short story of its own in the near future. It is a place dear to many in my family and extended family. My family cottage, on my Dad’s side, was nestled in the Parry Sound District of Ontario, just north of Huntsville, and coincidentally only 30 minutes from my now best friend’s family cottage, was the perfect example of a cottage. Built by my Grandad, it was one big room, four separate bedrooms (two with bunk beds, one with a double bed and one with 2 cot-like beds), a covered front porch, an outhouse, and lake access. This was where mismatched furniture was given a new life, leftover fabric from my Gran’s or Aunt’s sewing projects was given a home, where board games were piled high in one room and another where the walls were covered in old magazine clippings of women’s hairstyles and characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This was a place where my Grandad was inspired to paint the plywood floor bright colours like orange, blue, and lilac purple and where my sister and I ran wild with our cousins, fighting with plastic swords slung to our waists with pantyhose (true story). Here is where I got my first black eye, learned to swim, perfected my marshmallow roasting skills, and dressed up like Sailor Venus for the fall parade. We spent summers there while I was younger and then Christmas breaks when I was older. I was in highschool when my Grandad sold the property and a few years later I returned to see the lot bare and overgrown, taken back by nature. I have a lot of feelings about the turn of events that lead to this, but I won’t get into that now. The Cottage, located down Cottage Cheese Lane (not the actual name of the road but lovingly called so for over 40 years by my father), was a haven in my later years. Having moved around so much as a kid, this place never changed, and it was perfect.

Between living in Waverley, Nova Scotia and moving to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, my mom, sister, and I spent the summer at the Cottage. We visited with family and traipsed around Ontario before making the long trek across Canada. We took our time making our way along the TransCanada Highway, stopping at landmarks like Wawa Goose in Wawa, ON, the Terry Fox Monument in Thunder Bay, ON, and the Vegreville Egg in Vegreville, AB. We have photos so I know this is where we stopped because otherwise I have very little memory of the trip our west. We met up with my Dad in Edmonton, AB, who flew in to help us make the last leg of the trip through northern British Columbia, the Yukon, and up the Dempster Highway (this was well before GPS and Google). I saw mountain goats and the Canadian Rockies for the first time.

We arrived in Inuvik, Northwest Territories in August of 1999. We lived in the end-unit of a townhouse which was a dusty rose colour when we moved in and a bright red when we left, after seeing a disastrous Pepto-Bismol Pink in the middle. The house had four bedrooms, one bathroom, and no basement. Due to the permafrost (a permanently frozen ground) above the Arctic Circle, most houses didn’t have basements and were instead built up on stilts. I could crawl under the house. And I did many times.

I remember odd things from that house: I don’t remember the washer/dryer just to the left when you entered the front door, but I do remember the built-in shelves which stored our dry goods (purchased in bulk in the Yukon every March to save us paying exorbitant prices at the Northern Grocery Store). I remember the humidifier in the corner of the living room. I remember my Dad’s computer – a brick of a machine housing the Windows 95 operating system, on which my sister and I spent many hours playing a Grand Prix racing game and Space Cadet 3D pinball. I remember the front porch being used for water gun battles and assembling tiny snowmen. I remember dumping out pillowcases full of candy and chocolate on the living room floor after trick-or-treating with a witch’s hat and cape tied on over top of a bulky snowsuit. I remember being told I had rolled out of my top bunk, fallen to the floor, and been replaced in my bed by my Dad, only to complain about a sore neck the next morning with no memory of the incident.

To be honest, the memories surrounding this house are few in comparison to my memories of just living in Inuvik. We became an outdoor family. We spent weekends learning how to snowmobile or fish, taking family trips to Whitehorse, YK, and Skagway, Alaska, going to the Muskrat Jamboree down on the Mackenzie River, creating vast tunnels and snow forts. I joined Brownies and then Girl Guides. My sister and I learned to cross country ski. I joined the skating club and began my foray into figure skating, a sport I would continue for the next 8 years of my life. Remember that cohesive family unit I mentioned at the beginning of this diatribe? Well, this was where those bonds were cemented. It is unfortunate that this feeling seemed to dissolve when we moved away from Inuvik four years later, when my parents took on different work opportunities, and my sister and I inevitably grew into teenagers (ew). Ah well, c’est la vie.

To be continued in Part 3.