National Post (National Edition)
‘People are hiding now in Muskoka’
Shaming of those heading to their cottages
A call came in to the Bala detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police this week about an overturned boat spotted from shore.
In a normal summer, this would be a routine emergency for officers in the heart of Muskoka cottage country. In the middle of a spring pandemic, however, with the police boats still on dry land, it was a nuisance that put emergency responders in unnecessary contact with each other, and in the end for nothing.
It also illustrated a social dynamic playing out across Canada, from the Kootenays to the Outaouais, as the affluent take advantage of their private rural isolation opportunities, local snitches call in reports of city folk, mayors try to keep a lid on it all with earnest appeals to social conscience, and provincial governments impose travel bans that fall short of enforceable legal orders.
The “vessel” in Muskoka turned out to be a paddleboat that was floating empty after blowing off a dock in a windstorm. To be fair, wind does not discriminate. It might have belonged to a year-long local resident who has been obeying quarantine advice and got out their paddleboat the same week the ice went out.
Local officials have other suspicions, though. Losing a paddleboat after a long weekend is a pretty classic “weekend warrior” move.
“They are here,” says Phil Harding, mayor of Muskoka Lakes Township, which has a full time population of about 6,500 that more than triples seasonally with these warriors and other seasonal residents, many from Toronto.
“There is no question that people are hiding now in Muskoka,” he says. He estimates there are perhaps 1,500 recreational cottagers flouting the non-binding government advice against unnecessary travel to cottage country. It is hard to chastise people trying to take care of themselves and their families as best they can, he says, but that’s how it is. “If we lock ourselves down now, we actually might get a summer.”
Tips about violators have been coming in, reports of too many cars, but there is nothing formal to do about it, other than encourage everyone to stay put for the sake of everyone.
“Urban dwellers should avoid heading to rural properties, as these places have less capacity to manage COVID-19,” said Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, in early April.
Not everyone took the message to heart, and by last week, the East Kootenay Regional District was asking the British Columbia government to shut the border with Alberta to keep recreational travellers away.
The issue reached as far as the Prime Minister’s office, when Justin Trudeau’s wife Sophie posted a photo showing him and their children on Easter weekend at Harrington Lake, the official retreat near Ottawa. Trudeau said he was following the advice of health officials.
“After three weeks of my family living up at Harrington and me living here, I went to join them for Easter,” Trudeau said. “We continue to follow all the instructions from public health authorities.”
Still, it invited the shaming that has swirled around reports of people escaping to their country properties, cabins, cottages and lake houses.
Partly this is for jealousy that they even have the option. But it is also for disdain that they would put others at risk by travelling unnecessarily, and adding more potential pressure to small rural emergency services.
Travelling puts people at risk of car accidents, breakdown, even unplanned bathroom breaks, all of which can unnecessarily risk spreading infection. Even in happy isolation with groceries from the city, people still have heart attacks, strokes, slips and falls, accidents chopping firewood, all sorts of things that could put a new cohort of people into immediate contact with rural emergency responders.
“The chances of something happening increase,” Harding says. “That’s really a fundamental problem for why I’m encouraging people not to come north (from Toronto to Muskoka). I’m certainly hoping it’s more convincing. I’m hoping that I can appeal to people with that social conscience.”
Some yearlong residents have become almost “vigilante” about it, he says, not actually enacting physical vengeance on the interlopers, but voicing opinions along the lines of “Go away, don’t get us sick.”
“My simple reality is the province has made a bunch of suggestions,” Harding says.
A fire ban is in place that covers all burning, including small camp fires, but people have fireplaces. The only boats being allowed to launch at marinas are those that service permanent residences that are water-access only, but that is a rare real estate category. Most people can drive.
“They have not made it law that you can’t drive to your cottage yet,” Harding says.
People get antsy about words like “yet.”
The future has been coming faster and faster lately. “Yet” seems closer than ever. Canada went from mild concern about distant cruise ships to national lockdown in about a month. Victoria Day is coming soon and people will be desperate for weekend fun. What might it all look like by then? Police checkpoints on the way to cottage country do not seem so far fetched, not when police are already handing out tickets for loitering in parks.
So, for those who can, the decision to bolt for the cottage is a tempting big bet, which makes the job of rural mayors all the more difficult.
“The advice is to stay home, except for essential reasons,” says Ann McDiarmid, mayor of the township of Seguin, north of Muskoka, in a letter to residents.