DCHP-2

cottage country DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — chiefly Ontario, Manitoba, Geography

  several areas, mostly in central Canada, that are popular for summer vacations.

  Type: 5. Frequency — While cottage country is found in a number of countries (see Chart 1), the term is more than five times as frequent in Canada than elsewhere. As shown in Chart 2, the term is not limited to Ontario, but is most frequent in Manitoba, followed by Ontario and Quebec. The term is virtually unknown in British Columbia and Newfoundland. In Ontario, cottage country refers to the Haliburton, Muskoka and Kawartha regions if one is from Toronto, and the Rideau lakes area if one is from Ottawa.
  Boberg (2005: 42) shows data on the names for vacation homes, according to which the terms vary between cottage (Ontario, Quebec, Maritimes - roughly corroborated by Chart 2), camp (NW Ontario and New Brunswick), chalet (Quebec), cabin (Western Canada) or simply the lake (Manitoba).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "cottage country", which is marked "Cdn".

  See also: cottage  chalet (meaning 2)  Muskoka chair  

  • 1960  A great proportion of Torontonians look to the parks for summer recreation, rather than to the cottage country. More than 200,000 people attended the parks concerts last year. 
  • 1963  "What," said the man from British Columbia only last summer, "is this cottage country? It's all over the radio. Newscasts for the cottage country, weather for the cottage country, highway traffic reports for the cottage country. Everything seems to be for the cottage country, whatever that is. I've never heard anything like it in B.C. or anywhere else." 
  • 1979  The exemption was originally introduced to safeguard small, cottage-country municipalities whose livelihood depend on tourist dollars during the summer. 
  • 1990  Their view of the country had been admittedly Central Canada. A kind of tunnel vision caused by living in one of this stuffy city's most exclusive neighborhoods, weekends spent in cottage country and successful careers on Bay Street. 
  • 2002  Another useful map book is the 64-page Backroad Mapbook of Ontario Cottage Country ($15.95) produced by Mussio Ventures of New Westminster, B.C., with detail right down to the smallest logging road and information on more than 850 lakes and streams. Other map books by the company cover Eastern Ontario, Algonquin Region and the Near North as well as areas in Alberta and B.C. 
  • 2007  Meanwhile, entire regions of Quebec cottage country have reported dropping real-estate values and plummeting resort business as their lakes get hit with the algae, triggering banner headlines and a mass exodus of sandals and parasols to other parts of the province. 
  • 2015  "Dave was hugely Canadian," he explained, adding that a pond hockey scene and a Muskoka chair capture the honouree's passion for our national game and Ontario's cottage country.