Cottage Life

The go-to source for cottagers, the award-winning Cottage Life offers valuable advice as well as profiles, how-to articles, recipes, essays, issues pieces, and lifestyle stories that help readers look after their cottages, entertain guests and, of course, kick back and have fun.

S’more Stuff • Where you can read, watch, stream, listen, and visit—Cottage Life is everywhere

Contributors

Cottage Life

Editor’s Note: It’s spring! Let’s celebrate

Your Letters: Look who’s talking

Waterfront • Welcome to Cottage Season 2025! Grab a paddle and come on in. (The water is fine, fine, fine.)

To defeat mice, you need to understand their strengths and weaknesses

How these cottagers are restoring fish habitat on Lake St. Peter

Have you ever seen a green heron?

37 games you can play in nature

Buy the Way: These cottagers left the lake—and then came back

Reporter: Froggy feat & best for beer

What’s your favourite boating slang?

Cottage pantry stocking 101

Workshop • Our cottage DIY credo: maintain your stuff, build unconventionally, and cherish all hockey sticks.

Reader Project: A shed built with repurposed hockey sticks

How to use a grease gun

When you open up, it’s time to lubricate your tools

Security screen buyer’s guide

How to prep your fireplace for the season

What you need to know about the new Ontario Building Code

Quick fix to fill gaps in your repairs

Revamp your drill chuck for better bit grip

Cottage Q&A: A lake’s best water level; mouse control 101; road association insurance; cleaning composite and steel

If cormorants aren’t actually bad for the environment, can we bear to let them exist? • Reviled as greedy, fish-gobbling, tree-destroyers, cormorants have long had a bad rap. But if these native birds aren’t actually bad for the ecosystem, can we bear to let them exist?

How one artsy couple built six dreamy cottages on the Cape Breton coast • One artsy couple, six magical cottages, and a grand return to the Cape Breton coast

For the Sleeman family, the cottage isn’t where they go to get away from it all, it’s where their work begins

Everything you need to know about landscaping with stone—while keeping the environment in mind • Create your cottage dream property with nature’s most enduring material. Here’s everything you need to know about landscaping with stone—while keeping the environment in mind

Who gets to decide how the lake will develop? The cottagers on Muldrew Lakes are seeing first-hand that finding a balance can turn ugly • Who gets to decide how the lake will develop? The cottagers on Muldrew Lakes are seeing first-hand how hard it can be to balance individual and community rights

We asked you to share your quirkiest, coolest, and most peculiar boats • WE ASKED YOU TO SHARE YOUR QUIRKIEST, COOLEST, MOST PECULIAR WATERCRAFT—AND THE STORIES THAT MAKE THEM SO. BOY, DID YOU DELIVER

The spore-spreading field horsetail grows almost anywhere • The spore-spreading field horsetail can grow almost anywhere, is resistant to pests and disease, and survives in catastrophic conditions

Parting shot: Hops at the Sleeman cottage