It’s not uncommon to have a vacation property in Canada, but it seems that there is a lot of variation in what that property is called. The folks at www.the10and3.com have done some research on the subject, and they’ve found that the distribution is a bit like this:
While our particular cabin is somewhere near the cottage/camp geographic boundary, you’ll find that we refer to it exclusively as “the cabin”. Why? We find that referring to it as a cottage evokes pictures of cabins nestled in the trees along the shore of a crystal clear lake complete with a pair of Muskoka* chairs positioned invitingly on a wooden dock. That’s not what we have. Truthfully, we DO have the chairs, but there’s no view of the lake and nobody is going swimming.
Why not a camp? While the cabin is in northern Ontario, we live in Southern Ontario. For most people in the area where we live, camping involves a tent. For some it involves an RV, camper, motorhome, fifth wheel or some other form of hard-shelled, semi-insulated, electricity powered mobile shelter. This is also not what we have this is a blog about fenlife, not vanlife!
Perhaps we’re just Western Canadians at heart!
*Some people know Muskoka chairs as Adirondack chairs. We thought that this was a nomenclature thing and went looking in hopes that the10and3.com included it in their survey. They didn’t. But we did find this detailed explanation of the differences.