Kawagama 2010 - it's cottage time

No, it's not the Olympics, it's vacation time up in cottage country. It was time for the Civic Holiday weekend up at the Band Cottage on Kawagama Lake which is a couple hours north of Toronto, near the town of Dorset in Haliburton Highlands (which is just beside the boundary with Muskoka). Dorset is a fantastic place to know because when you run out of booze and other goodies you can get it all in the small community with the famous Robinson's General Store. Waterfront property provides recreation and stunning beauty while the ducks provide some of the wildlife and a lot of the poop.

The Band Cottage is a little touch of heaven and we enjoy getting away and partying with family during the annual get together (If you are in the market for your own slice of heaven in the area you can always check out the area Real Estate Directory).  Days are spent enjoying swimming, tubing, games, campfires and sing-alongs. With tubing the participants sit in various styles and sizes of tubes pulled behind boats and depending on the rider's age one of the goals maybe to get them airborne and bounce them out of the tube.

We had some huge marshmallows which tasted great when lightly toasted over the fire. Our fire was spectacular as a dead birch tree was recently cut down and used as firewood. The birch bark is highly flammable and creates a firestorm until the bark is burned away until only the wood remains.

The Civic Holiday weekend also features fireworks put on by the Lake's marinas including the Old Mill Marina.

See more pictures after the jump.


The Kawagama Lake Cottagers' Association also holds a Regatta during the long weekend. The Regatta had many events that reflect vacation activities up in cottage country such as swimming, building sand castles and canoeing. This year they supplied all the canoes for the race events.

Here are some of the Band Clan in the 2010 group photo.

In Dorset we find a street sign advertising the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) which has a CPO designation which stands for Community Policing Officer. Someone has changed this sign to read C3PO which is a reference to a golden protocol robot in Star Wars.