There is a specific kind of magic reserved for childhood summers spent in a cabin that hasn't changed since 1974. For a week or two every year, my entire world shrank—and beautifully expanded—at The Lake. We didn’t have Wi-Fi, we didn’t have cable, and most importantly, we didn’t have air conditioning. What we did have was time, thick and slow-moving as the currents that rocked our green aluminum and fibreglass canoe on a windless afternoon.
To this day, if I close my eyes, I can hear the definitive soundtrack of those weeks. It starts with the screen door. It was stiff, slightly warped by decades of Manitoba humidity, and hung on a tight, rusty metal spring. Whenever I burst out toward the dock or ran back inside with sandy feet, the door played its familiar two-note song: a sharp, wooden thunk as it cleared the frame, followed by the metallic, vibrating sproing of the spring snapping it shut. It was the boundary marker between the shaded safety of the cabin and the wild freedom of the lake.
Inside, the main room belonged to the overhead fan. It didn't so much cool the air as push the heavy warmth around in lazy, rhythmic circles, its gentle hum a constant undercurrent to our board games and afternoon reading. When the heat inside became too heavy to bear, the lake was the best escape. I would practically live in the water, swimming for hours until my fingers pruned. I'd plunge off the end of the wooden dock into the cool, dark depths, or just float on my back, ears submerged, listening to the muffled, watery heartbeat of the lake while looking up at the passing clouds and the odd by plane. The water was the only place where the summer heat couldn't touch me, and I stayed in until my shivering forced me back onto the warm, sun-baked boards of the dock to dry off.
Outside, the air was alive with voices. There was the soft, rushing hiss of the wind through the boughs of the tall white pines and trembling poplar leaves. If you walked down to the water's edge, the scent of the lake would hit you—that rich, earthy, green perfume of duckweed. Our days had no schedule, only rituals. Armed with nothing but plastic tubs and boundless optimism, I would spend hours wading through the reeds, hunting for painted turtles sunning themselves on half-submerged logs. We’d save the heels of our bread loaves to feed the geese at the shoreline, laughing as they jostled for soggy crumbs. If I sat quiet enough on the dock, I’d spot the elegant, low-riding silhouettes of loons in the distance, their haunting, crazed whoops bouncing off the water as the afternoon began to cool. Or I’d see the ballet of dragonflies whizzing over the water’s surface, pausing sometimes to rest in the shade of the enormous fringed vinyl umbrella, in eyecatching orange and yellow, before zipping off again in their aerial dance.
When the mid-afternoon heat peaked and the cabin felt like a wooden oven, salvation came in the form of cold watermelon. I’d eat it outside, perched on the cabin steps, the sweet, icy juice dripping down my chin and forearms. It tasted like ambrosia, like heaven—a sticky, cold contrast to the beating sun.
And then came night. Without AC, going to bed was sometimes an exercise in frustration and futility, as you tried to find the coolest patch of sheet. I slept completely spread out like a starfish, limbs flung to the corners of the mattress, blankets kicked all the way to the floor. But I was never lonely in the dark. Through the open windows, past the fine wire mesh of the screens, the crickets would begin their tireless, pulsating nighttime serenade. Lulled by their rhythm and the cool breeze finally rolling off Lake Brerton, I would drift off to sleep, dreaming of turtles, screen doors, and tomorrow's endless sun.
Jennifer