The Weekender: A Cottage Journal

Julie Rekai Rickerd is a Toronto-based broadcaster and public-relations
consultant.

The Weekender is a compendium of the author/journalist’s many classic
columns and essays about the glories of the Canadian outdoors and his
great love for cottaging. They have appeared in such publications as
Cottage Life magazine, the Ottawa Citizen, the Globe and Mail, and the
National Post and illustrate MacGregor’s best writings “about the
place I love most in all the world”: his family cottage on the edge of
Ontario’s Algonquin Park. The book also contains inserts from the
daily journal the author began about his cottage adventures on
“Saturday, July 23, 1983.”

There are chapters such as “Opening Up” and the inevitable
“locals-versus-tourists” dichotomy, interspersed with the seemingly
mundane but cottage-essential logs of daily weather conditions,
temperatures, and insect population quotient. A wonderful chapter titled
“The Art of Puttering” includes the author’s list of “must-do
things”: “have breakfast on the deck,” “paddle before the wind
comes up,” “join kids in swinging off rope,” and “have second
cup of coffee.” This “art” is not on his wife’s agenda. She is
“a project manager ... who must have something concrete (sometimes
literally) to do at the cottage or else there is no point in being
there.”

The MacGregors share a perfect division of labour. “She builds the
steps, replaces the deck, puts up the shed, hammers together the
docks,” while he putters and remains fascinated by and grateful for
“this profound difference in cottage personalities.” Unlike many
Ontario cottagers, the MacGregors use their cottage year-round and avail
themselves of the magic of snow all around and a glistening, frozen
lake. All four seasons evoke different enthusiasms.

MacGregor’s journalistic skills and his obvious love for and
commitment to his family cottage and “the Canadian cottage
experience” make this book a delightful read. It may well become the
Canadian cottager’s bible—a bedside-table book to savour during
cottage season and a book to lift the spirits (during the bleak months
between cottage closings and their spring reopenings) of those
unfortunates whose cottages are not winterized.