My name is Ken Cripps and my wife Susan and I now own lot 358. My family built one of the many “A” frame cottages on the lake in 1960. There was no plywood available back then, so the flooring and roofing material was all 5″ tongue and groove spruce boards. The truck that delivered wood for the entire cottage had a crane system to lift the load off the truck bed. When the crane rolled to the rear of the truck bed, the load was so heavy that it lifted the cab of the trucks front wheels about 3 feet off the ground. We rented a tow barge from Reg Potter and worked from 8:00am in the morning, through the night until 6:00 am the next morning to load and unload. It took us two very slow trips as we were using a 10hp engine to tow the barge. We were so tired we just went into our tent and fell asleep. It took us many weekends to get all the materials up a narrow path to the building site. I took us two weeks just to get the pillars in and then we completed the floor. The next summer we had some handy relatives come and help us raise the beams for the “A.” We put the boards on the roof and were shingling late into the fall with snow flying. We boarded up the front and back to keep the snow out for the winter and started on the all glass front the following spring. We ordered the glass in Toronto, much of which was cut at various angles, and rented a trailer to bring the crated glass to the lake. The trip went well and without incident up the old highways to the lake, and across to our lot from Potters landing. We carried the huge and heavy crates of glass up our big hill to the construction site only to discover that the angle had all been cut incorrectly on the glass. Some people may remember that the air was blue over our lot that day. It was the first time I ever heard my Father cuss. We repacked it and returned it to Toronto, had the glass recut for the following weekend, and then repeated the process successfully. We had many wonderful memories and good times. Unfortunately, in December 1995 a tree fell on the hydro wire during a huge snow storm. The weight of the tree pulled the hydro panel out of the cottage, shorted out, and the cottage burned to the ground. Luckily none of our neighbours on the island were affected, as there was so much snow it extinguished the flames. In 2008 my wife Susan and I rebuilt the Cripps cottage and now are continuing to enjoy my Mom and Dad’s dreams on beautiful Go Home Lake.
