Every time I come back to Ontario from anywhere I always feel at home. Home to me in Ontario is this, it's what we're in, it's Ontario's lakes. As a kid I had this great mystery about them, the Great North Woods I used to call it, but it really did mean something to me. When we first as a family were able to go up north to a place called Wood Lake, near Bracebridge, Ontario, it's where I caught my very first Bass, it's where I had my very first taste of real freedom as a kid.
Old Bob Crowley, the guy who owned the cottage we were staying at, had this little plywood skiff with a 5-and-a-half horsepower Johnson on it. One day he said "go over to Milton's Marina and get us a loaf of bread". So I got in the boat, never driven a boat before but I knew how the engine worked, took off, got the thing up on plane, and I think they could have heard me screaming all the way from Toronto because it was absolute freedom. I've always loved boats and I've always loved lakes ever since.
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Save your favourite destinations, activities, and articles to start creating your very own personalized Great Lakes Guide.
As of 2024, the Great Lakes Guide will be transitioning to Biinaagami.org. Biinaagami is a multimedia, change-provoking initiative rooted in Indigenous knowledge aiming to uplift voices and to connect people with their watershed.
