Little Brackens Island: A Muskoka Cottage Saga

By Gordon Dickie

This book is a collection of fond and treasured remembrances over the past nearly forty years, while spending the summers on my cherished Little Brackens Island on the Muskoka Lakes.
As we get older, our recollections grow a bit dimmer. The descriptions blossom and become more delusional. The memories are augmented and laced with incongruities, misconceptions, errata, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and some questionable apparitions. All of them are sworn as the sacred truth by a beguiling, impetuous and fanaticizing imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463435318

Gordon Dickie

E. Gordon Dickie, M.D. is a physician and was the only gynecologist in Waikiki during his medical practice.  He has written books on biological warfare, “1976”, and on the primitive instincts of homo sapiens, “Listen to the Animals” and how they effect our daily existence.  He has also written screen plays and medical articles.  Dr Dickie was the first to ski the summit of the 14,000 foot volcano, Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.  He now divides his time between winters in Aspen, Colorado, summers at his island in Ontario, Canada and spring and fall in Carmel, California. Dr. Dickie is a graduate of Stanford University and McGill Medical School.

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Chapter One

the COTTAGE

Chapter Two

the BUYING

Chapter Three

the ARRIVING

Chapter Four

the YEARBOOK

Chapter Five

the GETTING TO

Chapter Six

the HOT TUB

Chapter Seven

the GUESTS

Chapter Eight

the ANIMALS

Chapter Nine

the LAGOON

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

the MACHINES

Chapter Twelve

the TRASH PILE

Chapter Thirteen

the COUNTRY CLUB

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

the FIRE

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

the FLOWERS

Chapter Nineteen

the BOATHOUSE

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

the CHURCH

Chapter Twenty Three

the MOSS

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

the THRONE

Chapter Twenty Six

the PINE TREE

Chapter Twenty Seven

the 75th Birthday

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

the FRONT DOCK

Chapter Twenty Nine

the THEATER

Chapter Thirty

the DARK LAKES

Chapter Thirty One

the CLOSING

Chapter Thirty Two

the TWILIGHT YEARS

Dedicated to;

Laura & Todd

Ali & Kayla

I hope they will always

love and cherish

Little Brackens Island

as much as I have.

Also

My Guardian Angel

I also hope that these cherished memories

of events, activities and cottage history will

encourage other cottagers to write about

similar recollections for their future

guests and generations.

PROLOGUE

This book is a collection of fond and treasured remembrances over the past nearly forty years, while spending the summers on my cherished LITTLE BRACKENS ISLAND on the Muskoka Lakes.

As we get older, our recollections grow a bit dimmer. The descriptions blossom and become more delusional. The memories are augmented and laced with incongruities, misconceptions, errata, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and some questionable apparitions. All of them are sworn as the sacred truth by a beguiling, impetuous and fanaticizing imagination.

Those who know me, would not have it any other way.

The book was primarily written so that my children and any future owners of LITTLE BRACKENS ISLAND will appreciate all the tender loving care, as well as the conceptualizations and imaginations that went into its colorful and captivating history.

So be charitable and chivalrous and stroll down memory lane with me. Kindly overlook a few embellishments of predicaments, episodes, aberrations, memoirs, fabrications and anecdotes provided by close friends and passing acquaintances, in addition to some of my eccentric thoughts, impressions, observations, experiences, literary endeavors and a wee bit of genealogy.

The memory does strange things. As I meandered through my personal odyssey, numerous remembrances and recollections suddenly occupied my percolating neocortex. They ranged the entire gamut from hilarity, anxiety, titillating, thrilling to life-threatening, unpleasant and morose. Since they were so engrossing and interfered with my primary objective, I have decided to include them.

If a particular, amusing, unusual or compelling memory suddenly interrupted my thoughts, I’d say;

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

After I had recorded the incident, I’d say;

Meanwhile, back on the lakes!!!!!!!!!!

Also, there are some rather overzealous outbursts the reader may encounter scattered throughout this rambling monomania.

As a Christian, I believe in the Ten Commandments. I also believe that one should never lie. I’ve read thousands of books, articles, commentaries and editorials. It is substantially obvious to me, when an author is denying proven facts to promote his own nefarious beliefs and agenda.

When the thought of those subversive ideologues suddenly emerges from my memory banks and rattles my cage, the only way to erase their unconscionable threats is to confront them and write a few paragraphs exposing their deceitful, hideous hypocrisy and pervasive intentions. It soothes my soul.

So, please disregard and ignore my therapeutic blustering and bloviating. It allows my attention to get back to Muskoka, where it belongs.

I’ve also added a few personal experiences that were rather memorable, to give the occasional reader a well deserved intermission from my overly descriptive analysis of the numerous inane cottage projects. As the brain ages, atrophies and memories slowly disappear, I want to read about those amusing and venerated recollections, while I am in a nursing home tooling about in my Jag wheelchair, chasing all those cute young nurses.

The other thing that some readers may be somewhat confused about is why I didn’t just use the brawn and brain of the local contractors to do all the construction.

One reason is, because I already have a comfortable residence in Carmel, California with all the bells and whistles, modern conveniences and beautifully decorated. The home is perched near the top of a thousand foot mountain with a view over looking the Pacific Ocean, Carmel Valley and two hundred miles down over the primordial mountains of the Big Sur National Park, with distant peaks over six-thousand feet.

With perpetual, professional maintenance, there is absolutely nothing left for me to do except watch television, play a few rounds of golf and go to the hardware store.

However, in Muskoka, there are projects galore!

And, I love a project.

It’s the challenge!!

And, it’s a great excuse to stay outside amongst the essential elements from which we all came, and to communicate with God’s entertaining and innovative little creatures.

To contemplate a worthy addition to the beautification of rustic Little Brackens Island is a noble quest. To conceive of an idea, to allow it to germinate, to plot, to plan, to fantasize, to dream about and accomplish the enterprise is one of the highlights of my existence. Its a critical and crucial ingredient of my genome.

So bear with me in my amateurish and foolhardy attempts to tilt the windmills.

These recollections are not meant to be read as a book is normally read, from start to finish. It is merely a titillating rendition of different aspects and problems of cottage life. That’s why, there are chapter headings.

This chaotic compendium is also an entertaining chronicle of other cottager’s impetuous, misguided and ingenious schemes that should be added to the Muskoka lore, before they have been completely sublimated, rationalized and deeply buried,

Pick one of your most recent imaginative conceptualizations and laugh along with me, as I flummoxed, mangled and mutilated a similar project.

Opening the cottage in May is a momentous event.

You can’t remember where everything went.

   Thankfully, the cottage endured.

   The winter wasn’t as bad as you feared.

So celebrate, because there’s nothing left to lament.

Chapter One

the COTTAGE

It’s every Canadian’s dream to have their own cottage.

To escape the maddening rush where he’s held hostage.

   He yearns for the bush and to be free.

   Surrounded by God’s little creatures to see.

It’s a lifelong quest to which he religiously pays homage.

American; What do you do in Canada?

Cottager; Go to the cottage.

American; What do you do there? Fish?

Cottager; Well, first you’ve got to open the cottage.

American; So, you tell someone to open it, right?

Cottager; No, I’d prefer to do it myself.

American; So, just turn on the power and lights.

Cottager; No, there’s a bit more to it than that.

American; Then, you’re trapped in the woods all summer.

It always amuses me the naivety that Americans have about Canada, especially regarding their cottage.

For Americans, the essence of their existence is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For Canadians it’s peace, order, good government and the cottage.

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

During my youth, all my Canadian cousins called the United States ‘America’. Now that I am an old, cottager codger, all my cottager friends still refer to the U.S. as America.

America, to me, is Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Central and South America.

I prefer to call that rumbling, bustling and boisterous territory below the border, the U.S. or the States. I hope this doesn’t engender any confusion about the U.S.. They have enough of their own problems.

Since I’ve acclimatized myself to my cultural roots in Canada, I’ll sublimate that singular misnomer in paradise.

Meanwhile, back to the Canadian cottage!!!!!!!!!!

While we’re discussing the U.S..

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

That 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver were the best that I’ve ever seen. That overtime U.S.-Canada hockey game was a real heart thumper until Sidney Crosby streaked that puck past Ryan Miller and grabbed the gold.

I was ecstatic!

The closing ceremonies were spectacular. However, several of my U.S. friends never did understand all those beavers, loons, maple leaves and Indians.

It would be impossible to explain it to them!

It is a fact that statistically, Canadians have almost double the number of passports proportionally to their population, than those south of the border.

The other interesting fact is that the population of Canada is nearly the same as the population of California. It is also nearly the same as the population of all the blacks in the U.S..

Meanwhile, back to the Canadian Cottage!!!!!!!!!!

To a Canadian, the cottage is the sacred pinnacle and the ultimate nirvana of happiness. It represents everything in their short journey through life that is important. To be in the midst of nature’s wonders on a clear, serene lake among the maples, pines, hemlocks, oaks and spruce trees is an unimaginable peek at what heaven must be like.

It has always fascinated me about the unique history of cottages in Muskoka, because they are so cherished and occupy such a major part of the lives of the occupants. Rarely do Muskoka cottagers know the complete history of their cottage. That was one of the primary reasons that I was so intrigued with the unique history of Little Brackens Island.

Toronto is an incredible city of nearly two and a half million people. Every Friday afternoon, it seems like the entire population of the city gets on the 401, and then heads north on the 400 to their little bit of blissful utopia. No matter how small their chosen, precious sanctuary, no matter how ratty the dilapidation of their treasured abode, no matter how tiny the collapsing, clapboard domicile, it is their Shangri-La, their very own imperial palace.

They will stoically endure three-four hours of treacherous deluging and horrendous traffic just to sit on their beloved front veranda with a wee dram of their soothing, tranquilizing Rhy Whiskey and unload and sublimate the cares, worries and insults that civilization’s pandemonium has unloaded upon them.

In their wildest dreams, those myopic, provincialists from south of the border could never remotely understand or even attempt to appreciate the amount of prodigious effort, diligence and planning that goes into cottage maintenance and its preservation. A U.S. vacationer would much prefer, and actually demand, to have a modernistic, gadget filled, identical condominium sandwiched in a bustling and congested environment with all the citified amenities of a constraining megalopolis.

There are only a few short, delightful months of summer after a long, cold, dark winter. Cottagers are bound and determined to make the most of it. They endeavor with every ounce of energy to suck every conceivable, pristine moment out of the cottage milieu, before the crisp and colorful autumn leaves start tumbling down, and they have to endure another sustained, oppressive hiatus.

Opening the cottage, maintaining the cottage and closing the cottage is a full time occupation, but never an obligation. It is an innate, congenital calling. It is inherently embedded in the Canadian genes and psyche. They will go to any expense, any physical exertion and any confrontation in order to protect and beautify their castle

Their every thought throughout the morose, melancholy and depressing winter months, is when the ice will go out and they can get up to their cottage. They dream about luxuriating in the pristine environment of the wilderness and listening to the lonesome wailing of the loons and the shrill cry of the seagulls.

Without the loons, the silence would be absolutely deafening.

There is no more satisfying sensation like it in the entire world than to sit on the veranda and just melt into the enchanting and encompassing environment.

However, in order to do this, the cottage must be opened in the spring. For eight months the friendly, little, local critters have had the cottage all to themselves. The red squirrels, the raccoons, and all the mice have lived very comfortably in the cottage. They’re in no mood to just hand it over to the owner, even though the human ape considers himself to be the pinnacle of evolution, which means absolutely nothing to them.

Driving up to the cottage in the spring is always a momentous, annual, exciting event which has been discussed in minuscule detail by the entire family over the dinner table ever since January. Numerous lists about all the multitude of mandatory things that had to be done, as well as the mundane and inconsequential, were drawn up by every member of the family. The lists included cottage repairs, kitchen utensils, tools, taxes along with the friends and relatives they would like to invite up to the cottage.

Guests always necessitated numerous preparations, which frequently led to occasional contentious discussions, which required a great deal of diplomacy. Regarding friends and family, the cottage is the ultimate opportunity for getting to know true friends and relatives even better. Canadians treasure their relationships and will do anything for their friends. Its a type of innate camaraderie that engenders close alliances and friendships that last a lifetime.

Families are the ultimate importance for Canadians. When the family is all alone at the cottage, those are the times when there are some serious and intimate discussions, especially with the impressionable and self-asserting young kids. There is nothing like a boathouse discussion early in the morning with a son or daughter who has some questionable wayward proclivities.

It is the time to really level with them and get down to the basics since they are a trapped, circumvented and attentive audience. They have no place to hide. Sitting in a boat in the boathouse, the children must listen to what a parent has to say, no matter how uncomfortable, painful or unflattering the discussion.

I remember the days when my son was a teenager. I spent more than a few hours in the boathouse shouting and reprimanding him for his mischievous blunders, idiotic pranks and dangerous behavior, until I was so hoarse that I could barely whisper.

When we went up to the cottage, my wife would derisively and harshly say, You never discipline that son of yours.

And, I would reply in a humble, hoarse, barely audible voice, Yeh, someday I’ll talk to him.

I believe it is critically important that each parent handle their children individually, because men and women deal with problems and personalities differently.

Men can be extremely confrontational towards their rambunctious sons to make them see the stupidity and errors of their ways, whereas in contrast, the ladies are usually more conciliatory and, therefore, are completely ignored by their sons.

Also, fathers are much more conciliatory with their daughters. Mothers can castigate and berate their daughters venomously when they have done some unacceptable things. It is a time when daughters learn to imitate their mothers in confrontational disagreements.

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

When my daughter was a teenager, she was arguing with her boyfriend on the telephone.

As I walked by, I mischievously said, You don’t have him under control yet, do you?

I will! she responded in a deadly serious tone through pursed lips and squinting eyes.

It slowly and imperceptivity dawned on me, that she was just like her mother. That’s where she learned it!

Meanwhile, back at the cottage!!!!!!!!!!

It is a unique time of the year when there is no television, no school, no social activities and no other excuses to avoid any close contact and serious conversations between parents and children.

The sequestered boathouse is a hallowed sanctuary where all the truly frank and memorable discussions occur. It is pure purgatory for the kids. They know that an in-depth discussion in the boathouse is something to be dreaded all winter long. There is no escape. If they have made some serious blunders or are running around with the wrong crowd, it is time to get their act under control and to get them back on the straight and narrow.

It is paramount that kids understand the parent’s time honored axiom when they say, Show me your friends, and I will show you your future.

It is a time when the kids can confide in their parents, whether it be a mother and daughter or a father and son. Each has different problems.

Fathers have been through it all and have the battle scars to prove it. The most important thing that fathers can do in their lives is to inculcate as much of their vast knowledge of their disastrous, dangerous, idiotic and achievement experiences into the progeny’s memory circuits before they pass on.

On the day the cottage is opened, the family loads up the overburdened car, and escapes the tumultuous turmoil of the city’s continuous congestion and heads for the 400 to go up north. It is an exciting venture to drive up the freeway in the midst of all the other eager cottagers hauling boats, tools, toys, pets and trailers stuffed with mountains of paraphernalia.

One by one, they turn off the 400 or the 11 onto two lane highways and then maybe even a dirt road that leads through the thick, leafy foliage to the water’s edge where their pristine and sacred chateau patiently waits.

The kids immediately jump out of the car and run down to the lake. Mom starts to unload the groceries. Dad does a quick walk-about to determine what damage has occurred during the fierce storms of a long, ferocious, punishing winter.

Around and around he goes, looking for the telltale signs of destruction, deterioration or breakages of the old parts of the cottage, that are slowly crumbling back into the ground from which they came. Dad usually takes a little scrap of paper and starts scribbling down all the things that have to be done on the outside of the cottage.

By this time, mom has unloaded all the groceries. It is time for dad to unlock the back door (always the back door) and reluctantly enter the cottage. The first thing dad notices is the stale, musty air that has been cooped up all winter long. Mom reluctantly comes into the cottage behind dad. The two of them slowly survey the interiors.

They first inspect the floor for any droppings of the red squirrels, chipmunks, mice or raccoons that had taken up residence during the winter. Mom inspects the upholstery in the living room because that is where the red squirrels prefer to nest. Usually, there are several things that have fallen from the shelves and bookcases and are lying on the floor, knocked off by the critters.

There is a heavy dust all over the floor and furniture which mom tries to scrape off with her fingers. Dad looks at the ceiling to see if any of the red squirrels have gnawed through and other evidence of destruction and breakages from the unwelcome quests.

Most of the cottagers have professional plumbers that come around and inspect the plumbing and pipes when opening and closing the cottage. For the pipes to freeze during the winter is a major and aggravating expense. Most of the cottagers feel much more comfortable having professionals who are well versed in such things to make sure that the freezing doesn’t happen. If the pipes do freeze, the responsibility is with them.

There are a few brave individuals who feel completely competent with doing it themselves, especially the jack-of-all-trades locals that live in the north country all year long.

One thing that perpetually amazes me is the amount of expertise the locals seem to have who reside in the north, bush country. They have been dealing with plumbing, electricity, septic tanks, chain saws, construction, car motors, as well as numerous other things, all their lives. They feel thoroughly qualified and completely knowledgeable when doing any of their own repairs.

Whereas, the citified cottager prefers having a certified plumber come in and check out the entire system before they arrive so at least the water goes on, which is critical for all the ladies.

Male cottagers know from experience that the electricity and water pumps must always be functioning properly so that water is always available. Several of the cottagers take their water straight from the lake, which has been done for over a century. But, as the lakes have become more populated and polluted, numerous cottagers have installed elaborate purifying systems.

A significant percentage of the cottagers buy the ten-liter plastic containers of Muskoka Water, and only use the lake water for the laundry and for watering the flowers and the lawn.

It has been our traditional experience and preference to use the ten-liter jugs of water only during the ‘high season’ of July and August. During June, September and October, we drink the water straight out of the lake. Being on an island, there have been no ill effects.

Flowers and the lawn are a completely different chapter, because they are a very significant and complicated and an essential aspect of cottage life. The ladies seem to prefer a little touch of civilization, no matter how far they are out in the bush. The typical guy cottager would go straight back to his cave if the ladies were not around to continuously, with incessant and fruitless attempts, to partially civilize him.

Mom immediately begins to clean the cupboards even before the car is emptied of all the provisions. She wants a clean, spotless kitchen, because that is her cherished fiefdom. That space is her domain and sovereign sphere. She is the sanctified queen and rules with the utmost omnipotence, because she wants to make sure the kids get fed. She knows from frustrating experience that the kids and dad, when left alone, would grab whatever they wanted all day long and would rarely sit down to a decent meal.

As the first day draws to a close, most everything is in its place. Cottage life is beginning to assume its routine and schedule of frolicking activities and exciting events like all the other memorable summers.

The family dog or cat is still attempting to understand how the scenery changed so abruptly. It makes them even more suspicious and distrustful of the sanity of those whom they depend upon for sustenance. Fortunately, animals have short memories of their custodian’s questionable behavior. Within a few days, they have completely adapted and habituated to the new routine.

However, the majority of them still have not figured out where the lake came from. That fact is a complete mystery. All they know is that it suddenly appeared. In addition, if it suddenly appeared, it could also suddenly disappear. The sooner the better.

The evening meal is punctually and properly placed on the dining room table, and the dinner bell is rung.

The kids and dad come up from the lake after having caught their first fish of the season and cleaned by dad. After they wash their hands, they all sit down to dinner.

There is an expressive exuberance and glowing radiance at having arrived at their treasured sanctuary. They know that they can look forward to remarkable and unforgettable times with choice memories that will last a lifetime.

They also know that their family will grow closer over the summer. They will love and cherish each other more than they had the opportunity to do back in the big city with the incessant interference of continuous responsibilities and the never-ending crunch of unsolvable problems.

But, they have arrived.

They are in paradise.

The first night the family sleeps soundly in comfortable beds without hearing the occasional, screaming siren or the roar of continuous, reverberating traffic in a bustling, constraining and tumultuous civilization.

Chapter Two

the BUYING

There once was a cheerful and ambitious young fellow.

Who had always been extremely frugal and mellow.

   He went to Muskoka by chance.

   The scenery left him in a deep trance.

Charmed by a beautiful island that put him in escrow.

What kind of decerebrate would want to buy an island in Canada, when he already lives on an island in Hawaii?

Such a befuddled nitwit must be totally out of his short circuited, demented, harebrained mind. It begs the imagination to even imagine such a bizarre contemplation and consideration.

I was living in Hawaii with a medical practice in Waikiki. With the warm weather, swimming in the ocean every day, playing volleyball at the Outrigger Canoe Club at noontime and tennis in the late afternoon after closing my office, I was perfectly contented.

It was a pristine existence. There were many close friends and numerous social activities that persisted throughout the year. Occasionally, people went to the mainland or did some world traveling, but those in Hawaii loved living there. They were totally comfortable and satisfied with their lives and inoculated with a touch of ‘Polynesian Paralysis’ which dictated their casual outlook on life and an appreciation for their unique environment.

In 1972, I decided to take my wife, my daughter Laura, age six, and my son Todd, age eleven, back east where I had spent my childhood years.

All my relatives lived in Canada. It was time my children became acquainted with them. After visiting relatives in Ontario, we planned to travel on to Montreal and visit McGill where I went to medical school. Our trip was to continue down the Atlantic coast to New York City and then fly back to Hawaii. That was the plan. Everyone was enthusiastic to see the sights, even though the kids fought in the back seat the entire trip.

We flew from Hawaii to Detroit, Michigan, and stayed with a close friend, Hugh, who was the son of Cal, the man who talked my father into moving from Canada to Michigan. They were roommates at the University of Toronto. My mother and father immigrated to the United States in 1924. My father always said it was the worst mistake he ever made in his entire life.

The stock market was soaring. My father had completed law school and worked in the trust department of a Detroit bank. They sent him to Flint to tend to the trusts of automotive ‘trust babies’ and all their inherited millions.

All during the summer months, my dad used to drop me off at the Flint Golf & Country Club early every morning, and picked me up after he left the bank in the afternoon. I spent the entire day in the water. As a ten year old boy, I represented our swim team of all those under twelve.

Every weekend, all summer long, there were swimming meets with the golf clubs in Pontiac and Detroit, followed by a huge banquet and awards. On my very first entry at the prestigious Belle Isle Yacht Club on Belle Isle in the wide Detroit River, I was rather nervous. When they shot the starting gun, it startled me. I fell in the water and turned to climb out. I suddenly realized that everyone was already swimming, so I charged after them. I came in dead last with all the spectators surrounding the pool clapping for me.

How embarrassing!!! I was mortified!!!

Incidentally, our swimming coach, Tom Hanie, from the University of Michigan under Matt Mann became the swimming coach at Stanford University while I was there. Tom then became the swimming coach at Punahou in Hawaii where both Todd and Laura were in school. Tom and I used to reminisce about the Flint Golf Club and all the swimming events at other golf clubs.

After visiting the charming and elegant home that my father built in Flint, Michigan, we drove over the Bluewater Bridge from Port Huron to Sarnia, Canada. It was built in 1938. My dad drove my mother and me over the bridge a year later when I was seven years old. It was a big deal for me! I was mesmerized!

The bridge spanned eight hundred and seventy feet over the St. Clair River. The Canadian approach on land is twenty-six-hundred-feet. The approach on the U.S. side is twenty-three-hundred-feet, for a total of sixty-five-hundred-feet, which is more than a mile.

Even my kids were impressed.

In 1997, they built a second span.

We continued down the Canadian side to Walpole Island, an Indian Reservation near Wallaceburg. I’m always amazed when any of my Canadian friends even know that Wallaceburg exists.

The first relatives we visited were my uncle Roy Morgan, my mother’s brother, and his wife Iva. They had a small cottage on Walpole Island on the St. Clair River, across from Algonac, Michigan. As a child, I went there with my parents for two weeks every summer. Those summer visits to that clapboard, tiny cottage were very special for me, coming from the city life in Flint, Michigan.

My little band of energetic friends watched the gigantic, empty freighters come up the mile wide St. Clair River, causing huge, three-foot tidal waves that would sweep up the beach and annihilate our laboriously constructed sand castles that we had spent hours and hours building. At other times, we waited breathlessly for the approaching wall of water and attempted to ride the wave on primitive, small boards. Those freighters went on to Lake Superior and returned, heavily loaded and low in the water with iron ore. I don’t believe we ever realized how far those freighters had to go over two lakes and though several locks and down the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean.

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

My father’s fraternity brother, Cal, also came to visit Walpole Island. His son, Hugh, was two years older. Being bigger, stronger and domineering. he constantly bullied, berated and belittled me and my little gang of 8-9-10 year olds.

But, one momentous day, we had our well deserved revenge.

We invited Hugh to play our game ‘King of the Rusty Swords’. The game consisted of blindfolding one of the contestants and handing him a long stick with which he attempted to hit one of the participants after counting to ten. When he would shout ‘Rusty’, we all had to shout ‘Swords’ and stand still until he was able to touch one of the group. Then, that person would be blindfolded.

My daughter used to play the identical game called Marco Polo in our four-foot-deep, curvaceous, personally designed swimming pool in Hawaii that ambled between the coconut trees.

There, the one who was ‘it’ had to close their eyes and say ‘Marco’ and the other kids would say ‘Polo’. When the ‘it’ person touched one of the other kids, that person was the new ‘it’, but there in a pool, the other participants could keep moving.

All summer long, that’s all I heard. ‘Marco’ then ‘Polo’. The kids would play for hours and hours. I have seen that game played all over the country. It seems to be immensely popular, especially with young girls.

But, on that particular day at Walpole Island in Canada with the bully blindfolded, we had a totally different agenda.

As the bully put the blindfold on, one of our little gang ran to the outhouse behind the cottage and pushed the stick down the hole into the stinking heap below. He ran back to the beach and handed the reeking stick to the blindfolded bully.

We immediately ran out on the narrow, thirty foot, deteriorating dock as fast as terrified little kids can propel themselves, and jumped into a rowboat that we had parked there just for that occasion. We all started rowing for all we were worth, with two kids on each oar and the rest using their hands, all the time looking for the moment when the bully realized what had happened.

Well it happened! And did it ever happen!!!

He obviously smelled something and suddenly pulled off his blindfold and was horrified to see his hand covered with filth. He freaked and looked around for the offenders, who were busy rowing out to sea as fast as they could.

I’ll never forget how rapidly he ran out on that rickety dock and dove off the end with all his clothes on, and started swimming after us. And he was gaining!!!

We zigzagged back and forth in our frenzied haste, but always kept ahead of him. If he had caught us, I’m sure that he would have beaten all of us to a pulp. After about a hundred yards, he gave up and spent the rest of the day walking back and forth along the beach waiting for us to come back to shore.

At dinnertime, our fathers came out and shouted that dinner was ready, but we refused to come in. Our fathers demanded to know what the problem was. When the bully told them, they both burst out laughing. I chuckle every time I think about our father’s laughing hysterically, which antagonized the bully even more.

Only, after we were guaranteed protection, did we reluctantly return to the shore with the fathers between us and our assailant. The rest of my little gang went home to their cottages, but I was sitting directly across the dinner table from the angry and revengeful ogre.

Hugh slid down in his chair and kicked my leg as hard as he could. That was his revenge. I could hardly walk the next day. That painful black and blue bruise lasted the rest of my summer vacation.

Meanwhile, back to the driving trip!!!!!!!!!!

Those were the days when we aquaplaned. We stood on a three-foot-wide, four-foot-long board attached to a speedboat by a long rope and stayed on as long as we could. If the rider fell off, that was the end of their turn, and another one of the group would take their place.

The driver would intentionally go in circles, so that the tangential speed of the aquaplane would increase. When the rider hit the wake, it was usually violent enough to throw him off.

One time, I fell but hung onto the rope. My bathing suit came right off. I refused to get in the boat with the girls, and said I preferred to swim a half mile back to shore. I was only nine years old and was very self-conscious.

The Chris Craft factory was across the St. Clair River in Algonac and owned by Harzan Smith. His father, Chris Smith, started the boat building company. His daughter was my age. We became friends through the DOW Chemical boys in my little gang. Every afternoon when Harzan left the factory, he would come straight across the mile-wide river to the clapboard string of small cottages on the Canadian side and take all the kids aquaplaning.

Late in the afternoon, we all scrutinized the horizon. At the first sign of a fan tail spray from Harzan’s boat heading towards us, everyone began shouting, Harzan!! Harzan!! Harzan!!.

All the kids would scramble down to the beach.

Harzan took four of us down to Lake St. Clair one weekend. We fished in the areas between dense thickets of bull rushes that extended seven feet above fifteen feet of clear water. Harzan caught an enormous eighteen-inch bass and put it in a huge, specially constructed, water storage tank. With one mighty contraction, the bass flipped completely out of the tank and back into the lake

We were astounded! Harzan burst out laughing.

Everything had changed as things always do. The small cottage seemed much smaller, and quite a bit more dilapidated.

My children wondered what I thought was so extraordinary about the place. However, in my youth, that summer cottage left a distinct impression of good times, close relationships, unforgettable events and precious memories that would last all winter.

Those were the days of outhouses and kerosene lanterns. In the evening, the relatives would sit around the front, screened in porch and talk for hours. They held lighted cigarettes in their hands hoping that the smoke would keep the mosquitoes away, even though none of them smoked.

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

My mother was terrified of snakes.

One day my little gang found a dead, four foot, fat milk snake in the woodlands behind the cottages. We took that snake and curled it up in the tall grass next to the outhouse, then climbed up on the roof of the cottage where we waited patiently for my mother to see the snake. She came out and hung up clothes and even went to the outhouse a few times, but never saw the dead snake.

The first time my Uncle Roy went to the outhouse, he saw it and stopped and looked at it, and immediately hollered, Gordon, get that thing out of here.

It was obvious to him, that it was one of our mischievous and naughty pranks.

I also remember my cousin, Bonnie, who was my age. She was having a tea party at the cottage playing ‘dress up’ in their mother’s clothes. My little gang crept into the room and dumped a sack full of frogs on the table. She threw a teapot at me, but missed. It went through the window.

I still remember my dad taking his electric razor down to the customs house at the huge, ferryboat dock to use their electricity. All the Indians gathered around him to watch him shave.

Walpole Island was an Indian reservation. Even though there were some disagreements with some of the Indians, they tolerated the cottagers on the shoreline, because they pumped money into their economy. Their big square dance on Saturday night was always the major event of the week. Every little kid came to watch.

My uncle, Roy Morgan, had a hotel in Dresden, Ontario, that had a bar in which no women were allowed. The wife of a cottager friend, Mildred, still remembers that bar. We’ve had some amusing discussions about it.

Uncle Roy moved up to Lake Nippising and bought a hotel on the lake. I dropped by there on my way to McGill with my parents, and went fishing on the French River. I still have the photo of the three-foot wall-eyed pike I caught.

As a child, I remember driving over to nearby Callander to see the Dionne quintuplets, that were about my age. After paying an admission fee, we were allowed to observe them playing in the yard through a one-way glass window. The last thing I ever wanted to see was five girls my age playing on a lawn, but my mother and aunt were adamant. They even insisted that I memorize all their names, which was the height of indignity. There was Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, Marie and Annette. Wow! Where did that come from?

Mr. Dionne sat at the entrance selling his autograph for twenty-five cents. My uncle paid the fee and hung the autograph in his hotel bar for all to see.

Meanwhile, back to the driving trip!!!!!!!!!!

As a child, my father used to take my mother and me to Honey Harbor. I still remember that it was the first time that I had seen such deep, dark water around a dock. I was rather hesitant to go swimming, because I was so used to the clear water of the inviting swimming pool at the Flint Golf Club, where I could see the bottom.

I studied the map and drove from Walpole Island to Honey Harbor. Unfortunately, the Delawana Lodge had just burned down the previous day. All that remained were piles of smoldering ruins.

I was at a total loss wondering what to do. I decided to drive up to Perry Sound hoping that I would remember some of the other places, that I had visited as a child. On the way to Perry Sound, we stayed in the motel on the edge of Lake Joseph on highway 69. After dinner, I went down and sat by the lake and was mesmerized by the beauty of the still waters and stately pine trees at sunset. It was a distinct feeling of déjà vu, like I had seen it somewhere before.

I rapidly put that thought out of my mind.

The next morning, we drove into Perry Sound and down to the marina. We watched a man loading food supplies into his launch. I asked him what all that food was for. He said he was taking it to the Boy Scout Camp out in Georgian Bay. I asked if my family could go along for the ride.

Being an old Scotsman, he consented, but for ten dollars.

We all scrambled aboard and went for a forty-five minute excursion out though the thirty-thousand-islands. I remember my kids saying over and over how impressed they were with the scenery. They thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the cruise. The driver unloaded the supplies at the Boy Scout Camp and returned to Perry Sound. I asked him if there were any more lodges in the area like Honey Harbor, that had all the activities, like water skiing, tennis, golf and horseback riding. He said there was a place called Clevelands House down on Lake Rosseau in the Muskoka Lakes area.

I got the map out and managed to find Lake Rosseau. After several detours, we eventually found Clevelands House, which was a magnificent edifice. Unfortunately, all the rooms were already reserved for the entire summer.

I drove on around the lake to a small bed and breakfast, seasoned house called Sugar Hill. They just had a cancellation and were happy to accommodate us. After dinner, I sat out on the spacious, antiquated, covered, weather beaten veranda in a rocking chair. Again, I was mesmerized by the picturesque shoreline, the tall pine trees, the fluffy white clouds drifting by and the still waters.

The proprietor said they drank the water straight out of the lake, which I thought was rather unusual, since the vast majority of the lakes south of the border were polluted.

But, that feeling of déjà vu kept cropping up again and again, like I had seen it all before.

I went back to Clevelands House the next morning and made reservations for the entire month of July the following summer.

That same day, we drove down to Toronto to visit my father’s younger brother, George Dickie, and my mother’s relatives in Mississauga. I had grown up with my cousin, Bonnie, when she lived on a farm in Dresden, Ontario.

Before my grandparents died, they lived upstairs in a duplex on Bernard Street just north of the University of Toronto. When I was a child, my father frequently drove up to Toronto from Flint, Michigan, to visit his mother and father. I still remember knocking on the front door and looking up the long, dark stairway to the second floor and seeing my gray headed grandmother and grandfather happily shouting my name. I clamored up the stairs into a Victorian parlor with the heavy oak furniture and always that ancient, musty smell. Before dinner, we always knelt in prayer in front of one of the overstuffed chairs.

I still remember walking over to Avenue Street, which was all coble stones in those days, to the corner market to buy milk and groceries and to watch the horse drawn delivery wagons.

We visited with Uncle George and his wife, Dorothy, who was a regent at the University of Toronto. Unfortunately, she died a few years later from leukemia. George’s closest friend was Albert Menzies from Furgus next to Elora where George lived, when his father was the Presbyterian minister. George and Albert were roommates at the U. of T. and lived in Hart House.

A few years later, I met Alex, who was Albert’s nephew. We became close friends. He informed me that Albert was his uncle. I was shocked! I still had the letters that George and Albert sent to each other. I sent copies to Alex, which he appreciated.

From there, we drove to Montreal and visited McGill Medical School, where I had graduated in 1958. I had been telling my son for many years that the man who handled all the dead bodies that were to be dissected, was a ghoul; a very frightening ghoul who terrified all the medical students. Since it was summer time, the spacious anatomy room, with all the dissecting tables, was empty so we could walk around the entire area. My daughter and wife refused to come into the forbidding and formaldehyde saturated room.

Just as my son and I were about to leave, the ghoul appeared. He shuffled and grunted up the narrow, winding staircase from the body-stocked dungeon below. He was shocked to see anyone in the dissecting room and reacted with several muffled, short, gruff snorts, and quickly retreated downstairs.

He was just as disfigured and malformed as I remembered him. My son was transfixed. He couldn’t believe his eyes, that he had actually seen a ghoul. He talked about it all day long and the rest of the trip, and couldn’t wait to tell his friends in Hawaii.

We also paid our respects to Dr. Walter Chipman, my great uncle and adulated, chief professor of the Montreal Maternity Hospital at McGill during the nineteen-thirties. His larger than life portrait hung by itself in the medical library among the huge tapestries. I took a photo, that I had enlarged and laminated, of my daughter, Laura, standing beneath his enveloping regal red robe. Laura’s middle name is Chipman. She was named after Chipman clan who came to North American in the 1600s. I even heard some rumors that he sponsored me for admission to McGill, even though I was barely out of the crib.

That reminds me!!!!!!!!!!

On a cold, overcast wintry day at McGill, our class was walking outside from the biochemistry classroom to the endocrinology classroom on top of a steep bluff. The only way to get to the sidewalk below was an ornate, narrow, metal stairway with a freezing handrail.

Jeff, our rather eccentric classmate, decided to take a shortcut. In his idiotic wisdom, he wound up and slung his heavily laden, leather strapped briefcase to the sidewalk below. He slipped on the snow, fell backwards and went sliding down the steep, snow-covered slope, headfirst, under a blizzard of fluttering sheets of paper that had escaped his briefcase and were descending above him.

It was a remarkable and memorable spectacle.

A few weeks later, Jeff decided to take the arm of his cadaver home with him wrapped in an old newspaper. When the streetcar lurched and jolted, the arm fell out of the newspapers and landed on the floor. The terrified riders stampeded to the exit, leaving poor Jeff all by himself to confront the local constables.

The last we heard of Jeff was that he was up on Baffin Island above the Artic Circle counting snowflakes, after being extracted from our class, because of his disrespect for the deceased.

Meanwhile, back to the trip!!!!!!!!!!

We continued our driving excursion through New York and into Maine and then down the eastern seaboard. Every time I saw a ‘members only’ prestigious beach or tennis club, I drove in, parked the car near the tennis courts and started a conversation with the some of the members. Since I could talk their language, I was immediately accepted as one of them.

They were more than anxious to expound on the numerous attributes and virtues of their particular club. Those bravado, bragging, pontificating endorsements at several of those ‘privileged & swanky’ clubs completely baffled me. None of them, with their idealized location on the cold and menacing Atlantic Ocean, could compare with what I had seen on the peaceful, picturesque and serene Muskoka Lakes.

We stopped at Plymouth Rock to pay homage to my ancestor, John Howland, who came over the on the Mayflower. We stayed a few days at Nantucket then continued into New York City where, unfortunately, I took the wrong turn and ended up in the middle of Harlem, which was rather unnerving. Fortunately, it was daytime, and I was able to obtain directions to get back on the freeway.

After checking into the Waldorf Astoria, we took a cab across town to Rockefeller Center and Radio City. While stopped at a red light, there was a frazzled, bedraggled, gray bearded, middle-aged man standing in the gutter banging his forehead with his hand as hard as he could. Our cab driver drove on when the light changed, but my son turned and keep staring at the guy as he kept banging away, completely oblivious to everything else around him.

That was the only thing that my son remembered about New York. He kept talking about that head thumping, derelict and the grotesque ghoul all the next year.

We flew back to Hawaii, but I kept thinking about Muskoka and began to think it was all a dream. The next summer we spent the entire month of July at Clevelands House. The kids loved it.

During my college summers, I did a lot of water skiing at Lake Tahoe. Two other friends and I had a water ski school at Sunny Side resort on the California side. The other half of the lake was in Nevada. But, the sixteen-hundred-foot deep lake was rather chilly even though the spectacular mountainous scenery surrounding the lake added to its exceptionally, unique beauty.

Since those were the days before wetsuits, we had to execute a perfectly timed jump-start to avoid the cold water.

I was surprised and pleased that the waters in Muskoka were so warm and inviting.

I told the guys at the Clevelands House water ski school to leave the tab open for my son, so that he could ski as much as he wanted. My daughter was too young to water ski, but she was totally involved in a whirlwind of other activities. She found it hard to believe that everyone was so cordial and that there were so many fun things to do. The proprietor’s daughter, Sandy, was the same age. They became close friends. Sandy still works at Clevelands House.

We even took the Lady Elgin cruise out through the islands. I thought the driver, Ted, looked rather familiar. Halfway through our excursion, I found out that I used to play tennis with him in Hawaii. Ted taught for a few years at Punahou, a prestigious, private school, founded in 1841, that both my children attended. At the ripe old age of 159 years, it is the oldest private school in the U.S..

Ted returned to Canada and was a teacher in Orilla. Ted said his older brother, Arthur, went to McGill, and that his uncle was the dean of the medical school.

I was shocked.

Arthur was a Nu Sigma Nu fraternity brother at McGill. We were close friends. He started medical school in New Zealand and transferred to McGill, because of his uncle, the dean. He never mentioned where he went during his summer vacations.

Ted was a fountain of information about Muskoka.

As the Lady Elgin approached an island, I frequently saw a huge structure with several slips and assumed that it was the main cottage. As we got closer, I suddenly realized that the main cottage was a ten-bedroom home perched up near the middle of the island. It slowly began to dawn on me, that there was much more to Muskoka than I had previously thought or even imagined. I even talked to the local real estate lady, Iris, who showed me a few properties much to the dismay of my wife, who was anxious to get back to Hawaii.

My son frequently used one of the Clevelands House tin outboard motor boats to cruise around the lakes with his newfound friends. One evening he just happened to stop at Wallace Marina to buy some gas while we were having dinner. The real estate lady, whose husband, Bubs, owned the marina, saw Todd and flippantly said, Tell your dad I’ve got an island.

Todd drove back to Clevelands House and walked into the dining room and told me what the real estate lady had said. For some unknown reason, for which I’ll never know, I was interested. I immediately phoned Iris and asked her to take us out to look at the island. My wife, who was instilled with much more common sense than me, was absolutely horrified at such an insane request, since this was the last day of our holidays. It was pouring rain and getting darker and darker by the minute. I could barely see a few hundred yards out from the end of the Clevelands House dock.

Iris came over in her covered boat and took all four of us out to the acre and a half Little Brackens Island. We docked, tied up, got out and quickly scurried down the dock and up some irregular stone steps to the veranda. With such a heavy rainstorm, it was impossible to see any of the grounds.

The cottage was nearly a hundred years old. In the gloom of the continuous, pelting rain and fading light, it looked even more ancient and ominous. Earle, the thin, exuberant and energetic owner, cordially greeted us and invited us in to meet his charming wife, Gracie, and their two teenage sons who sat morosely in the corner and never said a word.

It was dark and dingy and musty and dilapidated, and I wanted it! The impulsive and impassioned juices just poured out of me. That little island suddenly represented everything in the world that I had ever desired. In all my years at Lake Tahoe, I never saw any cottages that even held my slightest interest.

I was overwhelmed by the intensity of my emotions.

The owner was from a small town across the border in New York. He had built a successful business supplying airplanes with the oxygen packs that dropped down from the ceiling when oxygen was required. He also invented the tail wheel on small airplanes. Earle gave me the book that he had written about the history and success of his company. That book has a prominent place on our bookshelf.

As so often happens in Muskoka, he had considered giving the island to his two sons, but realized that neither one of them would ever have the financial means to properly maintain the premises the way he did. He decided that it would more practical to sell the island, which would give the boys an income, after he was gone.

Earle bought the island in 1942 for twenty-six-thousand.

The price that he was asking was a hundred-thousand, which was a monumental sum in those days. I had no idea in the world how I could ever obtain that much money, or even enough for a down payment, let alone the mortgage. But, I was absolutely determined that I would somehow, and in some way, find some means to purchase the island. Early the next morning, I told my wife I was going down to the dock to watch Todd water skiing. Instead, I went straight over to see Iris at Wallace Marine to confirm my intention to buy the island.

At age forty-one years old, I gave Iris a check for ten-thousand-dollars, which was every cent I had in the world. After breakfast, my wife went to local beauty parlor to get prepared for the long flight back to Hawaii. Iris just happened be there at the same time, and told my wife that I had just bought the island. Iris was pleased. She believed that we would be a great addition to the lakes.

Needless to say, I later endured ten agonizing hours of a savage and unrelenting brow beating by my angry and ferocious wife, who was thoroughly convinced that I had completely lost whatever rational and reasonable connections I ever had with reality.

With clenched teeth and pursed lips, she adamantly announced that she was not going to come five-thousand-miles back to Canada every summer to live in some god-forsaken, crumbling hovel in the middle of an isolated lake, hundreds of miles from civilization. When we got back to Hawaii, we were barely speaking.

I told my seventy-three-year-old mother, who was born in Dresden, Ontario, but was now living in Hawaii, that I had just bought a cottage in Muskoka. Isn’t that nice? she responded cheerfully. We used to take you up there all the time when you were a small child. You used to hang over the bow of the Sagamo on the Hundred Mile cruise. Your dad was always worried you were going to fall in the water. During the twenties, before you were born, your dad and I used to stay at the Staney Brae Lodge in Foots Bay. After you got older we began going to my brother’s cottage on Walpole Island.

It was then that I knew that the déjà vu was real. As a small child, I had seen Muskoka, and had never forgotten it. It was forever, indelibly etched into my psyche.

My father passed away three years before I bought Little Brackens Island at age seventy from Parkinson’s disease. He would have loved it. My mother came every summer. Several times we were alone together in the cottage and played the card game ‘spite and malice’ for hours. She was a wonderful lady and lived to be ninety-nine. She didn’t want to live to be a hundred, because they would put her age in the newspaper, and she didn’t want anyone to know her age. Mother was very vain.

More about Grandma in another chapter.

I liked Earle, the owner. We became close friends, and he even came to visit us in Hawaii. We played golf together every time he came to see his sons, who were staying at Frahling House next to Clevelands House. One of the sons, Harley, wrote books on the Muskoka steamships and steam yachts. Harley had a rather questionable habit of suddenly appearing on the island and scaring my wife. On one occasion, he entered the cottage and went up to the attic to retrieve something, while my wife was at the clothesline. She almost fainted when he came down the stairs.

Earle was most accommodating and suggested that I only pay the quarterly interest and principal payments, with no down payment.

That I could afford. The deal was done.

I asked him why his next-door neighbor on the Big Brackens Island didn’t buy the Little Brackens.

Earle said that he had given Bob the first right of refusal.

Bob claimed the price was too high. He said that he had only paid sixty-thousand for his three-acre island, and Earle wanting a hundred-thousand for an acre and a half island was ridiculous.

Bob stomped off in a huff.

That’s, when Earle decided to put his island on the open market. I just happened to be the first person that came along. I heard later that Iris had phoned a few other potential clients, who arrived the next morning after a long drive from somewhere near London, Ontario. They were absolutely livid and hysterical that Iris had already sold the island.

Acquiring Little Brackens Island was total unabashed, fortuitous, propitious ‘fate’. It boggles my mind that so many critical things just had to happen in a particular pattern on such a rigid time schedule. There is no question in my mind that my guardian angel contrived and orchestrated the entire scenario, just to bring me back to my heritage, and to keep me out of trouble, which frequently required her assistance.

I ‘just happened’ to decide one summer in Hawaii to bring my kids back east to show them where I had grown up. The Delawana Lodge ‘just happened’ to have burned down the day before I arrived. I ‘just happened’ to go to Perry Sound and toured the thirty-thousand islands in a launch going to a Boy Scout Camp. The driver ‘just happened’ to mention Clevelands House on Lake Rosseau.

I ‘just