Cottage Life

The go-to source for cottagers, the award-winning Cottage Life offers valuable advice as well as profiles, how-to articles, recipes, essays, issues pieces, and lifestyle stories that help readers look after their cottages, entertain guests and, of course, kick back and have fun.

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Cottage Life

Editor’s Note Oh, to be a kid at the cottage…or not?

Your Letters: What’s the chatter?

Teenage dream: smart cottage purchases for older kids • A few smart purchases can help make the cottage your older kids’ favourite place to be.

Reporter: Green boats, new show & FOCA fun

It’s a blast! The Oak Lake Palooza

A group cleaning up abandoned docks

How loud is too loud for your boat engine?

Meet a storm chaser

Loons shake a leg

These high-tech buoys are deployed on the Great Lakes • Buoys have dotted the Great Lakes since the ’70s. But those were nothing like today’s high-tech versions deployed by researchers and water science companies, such as LimnoTech. These new-buoys-on-the-block are smaller, lighter, and jam-packed with super sophisticated technology.

Get to know Honey Harbour, Ont.

These parents downsized to the cottage

Keep the cottage cool without costly renovations • It’s too hot to work! But you can keepthe cottage comfortable without costlyair conditioning or major renovations. Hot tips for cool cottagers.

Avoid power tool burnout

Composite deck boards that won’t burn your feet (or paws)

Why ductless mini-split heat pumps are the way of the future

Add a vise to your toolbox

A way to beat septic clogs

Repurpose sad pool noodles • Does your cottage host a few sad, forgotten pool noodles tucked in a corner of the shed? They still have potential—give them purpose!

Cottage Q&A: Hang grandma's quilt; test propane levels; creosote substitute; lightweight dock options; ID fossils

Beavers are a common cottage foe. Here’s why we should embrace them • The Castor canadensis is a common cottage foe. But it needn’t be. Now’s the moment to embrace the beaver

Start future-proofing your cottage with a cheaper and more efficient heat pump • Start future-proofing your cottage with this greener (and cheaper!) way of heating and cooling

An Aussie-inspired cabin makeover • Buh-bye neutrals, g’day patterns! Ex-pat Jen Moffat’s bold design philosophy? Fearlessly decorate with joy

“The Cottage is Boring!” Here’s how to rekindle the magic for your lake-loathing teens • Are your once cottage-loving kids becoming lake-loathing teens? Here’s how you can rekindle the magic of childhood in paradise

After a deadly race 65 years ago, history has brought a fated boat back home • In 1958, celebrated Canadian motorboat racer Will Braden lost his life on a Huntsville lake ashis family watched helplessly from the sidelines. Now, history has brought his fated boat—and the legacy of hydroplanes—back home

How cottage-country critters conceal themselves from hungry predators—and from us • Cottage-country critters use all kinds of camouflage strategies to conceal themselves from hungry predators—and from us

No boring hot dogs here—it’s time to fancy up your franks!

What’s summer without the iconic blueberry? • These hardy shrubs provide a staple fruit for many animals during hot summer days—we just hope they leave some for us

The word for when the sun hits the water juuust right