LET US CONSIDER THE JOYS OF OWNING a traditional cottage. And by traditional, I mean one at where you haul out the docks and pull up the waterline, even shutter the windows, because when you close up in late autumn, you aren’t coming back until next spring.

Because it is a real cottage and not a house in the woods.

It’s feeling winterish, and so I am on the way to my own traditional cottage, which is ultra-traditional because it is on an island. I have walked through a rough path in the woods and come out on the shore close to the island where we keep a small plastic boat because our real boat is in winter storage. The little boat is almost where it should be except it has blown off the shore and is upside down in the water. Luckily, it is on a rope and I only have to get my feet wet to reach it.

I tug it in, dump out the water and push off wetly onto a sheet of floating ice. I expect the weight of the boat to break up the ice, but we just sit there. So, I begin to crack a path with the butt end of an oar. I have been stuck like this before; years ago, I kept an axe for chopping a path.

Why don’t I use the axe now? Because several years ago, I dropped it in the lake, mid-channel.

When I reach the island – only about 100 yards over the water – I reward myself by eating a turkey and pesto sandwich with sprouts of some kind. My emergency rations.

Then, I start the process of tidying up for winter; the heavy work of docks and waterline has been done two weeks ago. Yet, there is plenty to do.

First, a bird or something has smashed through a window in my boathouse, so I have to do something to prevent racoons and squirrels from getting in.

Luckily, any traditional cottage abounds in odd pieces of wood. I cut a sheet of panelling, then hammer away.

(This is not the first time a bird has smashed through a window. A spruce grouse crashed into the kitchen one November 10 years ago, so I filled the hole with a large sheet of plywood. Maybe next year I will replace that glass.)

This done, I recheck all the taps and drains to make sure they are open and that plumbing antifreeze has been put where it should go. Water freezing in pipes and taps and sinks is the curse of the traditional cottage, and we guard vigilantly against it. No small task at my place, which was built by someone I think of as an eccentric. There are, by my rough count, 40 taps that need checking.

Next and, I hope, last on my list is the refrigerator, which has been on since May. This task raises the question: should I stay for supper? And if I do, can I really eat eight hamburgers? And should Parmesan cheese have blue highlights? And how old are those eggs?

I have a large cooler bag that takes some of the load, but the cottage compost heap also is well fed.

As for those eggs of dubious ancestry, I walk into the woods and distribute them among the trees, believing this will be a benefit to the meadow voles and mice. Indeed, perhaps it will be some miracle of manna they can tell their children.

The final act of shutting down is a tour of the island, mostly looking for downed trees. When that is done, so am I. Light rain is falling but the ice has mostly melted, so I cross easily and lug the little boat into the woods.

By now, the light is fading and those woods start to take on a flavour of menace. The last time I closed the cottage this late in the year, I did it with snow falling but luckily I had help.

At that time, I was told wolves could be heard howling far away. Which is where one wants them to be.

This time, all is quiet. Which is how one leaves the traditional cottage.

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