In the summer of 2023, I bought a cottage. Not the kind of cottage purchase that makes the news — this one cost $22,000.
1104 Fantham Road sits in Lac Gerard Campgrounds, a land lease community in Fauquier, in Northern Ontario. That’s how these places work: you own the cottage, and you lease the lot it sits on. The cottage is a two-bedroom, and when I bought it from Yolande Fantham, it was… let me be kind. It was tired.
The tar paper was peeling off the wall. The yard had gone to weeds. The paint had faded to a colour nobody would choose on purpose. But the bones were there, the lake was there, and the price was right.
Truth is, this is the kind of project I love. The more derelict, the better — I have a real passion for taking the places everybody else walks away from and bringing them back. This one tested it: it took six months just to get the electricity turned on. Six months. But that’s the work. Anybody can buy a pretty cottage; it takes a certain kind of stubborn to rescue one.
So that’s what happened. New siding and trim, new windows, a proper deck with stairs you can trust, a real kitchen, a bright sunroom, and a lot of cleaning in between.
These days she’s a proper little northern getaway. The neighbours are quiet. One of them is a moose.
And if you ever come up to visit, make the trip to the town dump. I know how it sounds. But the bald eagles hold court there like they own the place — half a dozen of them, most days. Around here, that’s a tourist attraction. Worth a visit.
And up the highway in Smooth Rock Falls, the dump there has bears. Big ones. They sit on the piles like they pay taxes on them.
More stories from Lac Gerard to come — the lake, the birds, and how a Toronto property manager ended up owning cottages up here. One post at a time.
— Rachelle
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