When I was five years old, and my brother was seven, my parents bought a plot of land on Lake Mazinaw, an hour or so north of Belleville. We spent every summer there, until I was about 16.
My father was a school teacher, my mother a homemaker. So from June till September, we were at the lake. Camping at first, then building a cottage from the ground up. My parents had the necessary skills, so they just got on with it. My brother and I toddled along behind, first clearing the land, then wielding paint brushes and hammers. Within a few years of hard work, we had a cottage in the woods. It seemed so normal. In hindsight, it was anything but.
You could only get to the property by boat. So, we hauled the bricks, lumber and all the rest across the lake by barge. If we weren’t building, we were playing.Ìý
Feeding chipmunks in the woods at the cottage, July 1982.
Shirley EvansThose 10 summers spent in the woods and on the lake were magical. We roasted marshmallows, fed chipmunks and forest bathed before I even knew what forest bathing was. As a teen, I scooped ice cream at the local marina.Ìý
I learned to swim, chop wood and build a fire with crumpled newspaper, twigs and sticks, then a few logs with lots of space in between.Ìý
There were other lessons too. One time, my brother and I camped with friends on a little island. That night, we learned the hard way not to heat a can of beans in the bonfire without opening it first. It exploded. The next day, everyone on the lake was talking about what they thought was a gunshot.
The Hammond family cottage in the summer of 1977.
Shirley EvansDecades passed. I grew up. And the cottage was sold. But I never forgot the camping and cottaging there. Over the years, I gravitated to people who shared an appreciation of the great outdoors. And together, we sought out more adventures.
In my 20s, a friend and I drove to the east coast of Canada. One night in Nova Scotia, we stopped at dusk at a campground in the middle of nowhere. The campsite was a huge field, totally vacant. We were tired so we quickly pitched our two-person tent and fell fast asleep, leaving the door open because it was warm and no one was around.
I woke to a noise, opened my eyes, and there, crouching and peering in at us was a fisherman in a raincoat, hat and big rubber boots. Too scared to speak, I grabbed a fistful of my sleeping friend’s flesh and squeezed. He woke with a start. When I looked back at the door, the fisherman was gone. We scrambled out of the tent and shone our flashlights all around, but there was no one as far as our eyes could see. Was it a ghost? A dream? I’ll never know.
Now, I return to nature as often as I can, especially in the summer. It feels like going home. And it’s something I share with my son. He’s almost 20 and has two decades of experience camping and cottaging — and, I hope, a long life of it ahead of him.
Communing with nature takes us back to what’s real. It’s nourishing. It teaches values like nothing else can. And it certainly shaped me into the person I am today.
All children deserve to grow up with summers filled with experiences in the great outdoors. That’s why the Fresh Air Fund is so important. It gives kids that opportunity who wouldn’t otherwise have it. And it teaches them deep and important lessons. So if you can, please donate what you can. And give the gift that will last a lifetime.
The pc28¹ÙÍøStar Fresh Air Fund
GOAL:Ìý$650,000
How to donate:
With your gift, the Fresh Air Fund can help send thousands of kids to camp. These children will get to take part in a camp experience they will cherish for a lifetime.
Online:
To donate by Visa, Mastercard or Amex use our secure form at
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Mail to The pc28¹ÙÍøStar Fresh Air Fund, 8 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON M5V 0S8
By phone:ÌýCall 647-250-8282
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