Jananas

The next couple of weekends are a little crazy busy for us, so we’re taking a chance to head up to the cottage this weekend. I’m stoked. The cottage really is a large part of my history and who I am. I enjoy being up at the lake. I enjoy the quiet and the dark nights and the time with the doggos.

I think that we’re going to head over to Perth to check out their annual Garlic Festival, which is held this weekend. We both really like garlic and we’ve expressed interest in being able to grow our own. This would be a perfect place to learn all about it, even if we may not be able to start this year. Plus its something new to do.

Here are a few fun facts about Mazinaw Lake for the rest of you:

• The name Mazinaw comes from Mazinaabikinigan-zaaga’igan, meaning “painted-image lake” in Algonkian. This is a reference to the 260+ pictographs painted along the base of the rock.
• The lake is about 15 km (9 mi) long and averages a bit over 1 km (0.6 mi) in width
• The lake has an average depth  41 m (135 ft) with a maximum depth of 145 m (476 ft), making it the second deepest lake in Southern Ontario besides the Great Lakes
• Most of the lakes in the area run east-west. Mazinaw runs north-south. This (and its great depth) occur because the lake lies on a fault line. Anecodately, there are stories about cottages being built along the fault line and having to be moved 10 feet over so that they’d stop shifting.
• Mazinaw Rock is a 1.5 km long sheer cliff , rising 100 meters above the deep dark water of the lake. Its nickname is Bon Echo after the great echos you can get off the rock. Bon Echo Provincial Park takes its name from this memorable feature.
• Our favorite story about the height of the rock is Poison Point (one drop and you’re dead). It would be funnier if my dad hadn’t found the body of a climber, who’d fallen off and died, floating in the lake when he was a teenager.
• Members of the Group of Seven have painted the rock
• My dad tells stories about waterskiing through the Narrows as a teenager. The lake was much quieter then and there weren’t all the city-odts from the Park trying to canoe/kayak through the narrows (i.e. it was way safer to do back in the 60′s). I just like how much things have changed.

Have a good weekend interwebs.