There are many stories and memories of GHL which I can recall over the last 58 years since we first purchased Crown land in 1960 and erected the cottage in 1962: driving up every Friday night from the city on a 2 lane Highway 69, past the Oaks restaurant to country road 32 and then loading the boat and setting off with a full load plus kids and dogs towards Black Squirrel Island frequently cruising passed “old Charlie” ( the local bear) swimming across the channel at Potters Landing. I remember fondly family and friends get togethers, corn roasts, teaching my daughters to water ski, driving into the LCBO in MacTier on Saturday morning and writing out a Government form for a bottle of booze. (I think a bottle of Rye cost about $10 )
Every cottager and family were busy building. The landing at the Marina was piled high with lumber, windows, packs of shingles and other building materials. Neighbours helped neighbours to transport said goods to their chosen lots. No TV, no Cell phones (the only phone available was the pay phone outside the marina store) no Facebook, and no Internet. You were lucky if you had a battery run portable radio to listen to CFRB. Socialization was face to face and waves from boat to boat or dock to boat.
There was no electricity for the first year at the cottage so meals were cooked on a coal oil portable stove; coal oil lanterns were used at night and the bathroom facilities was an outhouse up the hill which was sometimes shared with a very large raccoon. Babies were bathed in a large aluminum wash tub (which we still have) while the grownups “tub” was the lake. My daughters spent their summers at the lake, giving swimming and sail boat lessons through the Go Home Lake marina operated by the Whittinghams. Both my daughters are married with families of their own and still remain on the Lake. I am proud to say my grandchildren are 4th generation Go Home Lakers.
My most precious memory of Go Home Lake is sitting on the deck at sunset with my glass of wine listening to the evening call of the loons.
To me there is no place as beautiful as our lake.
~Renee Bruce