SecondSamuel

I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario. Then, it was completely normal for ordinary, working class families to own a cottage (or camp, as they are called up North). So, I had the great priviledge of growing up with a camp in the Killarney area. As an added bonus, many of my friends in Sudbury had camps in the same area! We'd get to swim, hike, canoe, fish, and play all day in the forest, largely unsupervised, as was the norm back then. We even had a homemade row boat with a glass bottom made by my uncle. We'd boat from island to island and picnic and play hide-and-go-seek or hunt for buried treasure. Sometimes, if we were in a particular mood, we'd even help canoeists portage their gear between lakes, just for the fun of it. We all had dogs too, who would run free on our adventures with us. They never had to be tied up at camp! Kids and dogs, and probably the adults too, we are all very free.

We didn't even know how lucky we were. So many people had camps in the north. It was so big deal to us at all. We just grew up going to camp for the weekend with friends and family. Camp was less than an hour from home, not the arduous journey from Toronto to the Muskokas that you hear about today. Traffic wasn't even heavy! Just a quick hop from home to camp. Camp was rustic and simple, not like cottages now. But did we ever have fun...

We lived and played in areas like this and it was just ordinary for us. "Look there's a moose" was common thing to say and so was catching fish or spending the whole day swimming. Scenery like this was completely ordinary, and a daily occurance.

It was great being a northern kid! It was all so simple... Since ours was a family camp, I grew up seeing my cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles almost every weekend. We'd sit at the end of the driveway and listen for cars coming down the dusty road, just hoping that our favourite cousins would be coming on a given weekend - not those wild boys cousins - LOL! And hoping to see rare treats like CHIPS sticking out of the someone's grocery bags!

I'm so grateful for those days.