Do you know what it's like to love a place too much?
I do, I think. I love the camp that much. The camp? Well, yeah. "The" camp. My parents' camp. Which is not a camp in the kids running around doing ropes courses sort of camp, nor is it a northern Ontario camp that is really a cottage. It was, until recently, one of those old-timey northern Ontario housekeeping cottages affairs. You know, where people come, and rent a cottage, and go fishing every day, and sit on the deck or on the lawnchairs and maybe there are kids playing, but there are no jetskis, nor is there a pool, tennis court, lodge of any sort, or even payphone.
Those sorts of places are mostly gone, now. When I was little and we first got the camp, there were four of these on Rock Lake. Maybe even five, I'm not sure when the Finlayson place shut down. There was Crystal Cove and Rock Lake camp, and both of those are "private" now - I don't know what we meant by that, really. Somebody's private heaven. In my childhood mind, that equated to selfish. There's still the place across the lake, the Sunrise Shores place, but I think it's mostly a trailer park. And there was Amogla Camp, which was ours. We bought it at the tail end of that northern Ontario institution, the camp consisting of cabins, outdoor water taps, and outhouses but geared to families. We turned it into something else, slowly, one cottage at a time. Septic beds and new power lines and clearing brush for more lawn and a new well and so on, and slowly, it turned into the "new" Amogla Camp.
And the new got old too. Roofs need reshingling, water heaters are breaking. And people want to retire. Last year, my parents finally did. But we still have the camp, for now. I guess it's "private". It's closed for business.
The thing about these old-style camps was, the same people came back every year. It wasn't exactly easy to get a "week" - i.e. a booking. Once you had it, though, unless you screwed up (for example, by insisting on a 
jetski) you could come back year after year. And people did. For generations, really. Many of the customers pre-dated our purchase of the place (or, at least, their parents did). We called them "guests". For me, as a kid, they were part of my summer landscape, and in a loose way, my extended family. And for them, it was "their" cottage. If you come back to the same cottage the same week every year, year after year, you feel that way. When the cottages were replaced, first dibs on weeks in the "new" cottages always went to the people who'd inhabited the closest old cottage, the one that was replaced.
You assume that the old camps shut down because people want all those fancy amenities - from a dock to spa access. I don't think that's true. I think it's because my generation doesn't share that willingness to work that hard during our brief, wonderful northern summer for so little money, and somehow make the sacrifices that it would take to fit that with a job the rest of the year. You can't live off a 10 (or even 14) week season from one of these places. Not at the standard of living we've come to expect. And you can't raise the prices without getting into all that value adding amenity stuff. So you close. When my parents closed, they turned away bookings for the next year. It would not have taken much for them to be fully booked. But then, they also didn't charge that much. Nothing compared to what you pay within easy driving distance to Toronto.
But it's still there. And I don't go there as much as I should, or even could, if I was willing to paddle less. I love it too much. When I go, it hurts a little bit. It's like a twisted part of my brain says, but wow, won't it be hard, when this place is no longer *yours*. Don't come too much. If you do, it will rip a hole right out of you when it's gone. I suspect I know what that says about me on other levels, but that's the way it is.
So when I end up there, even for a precious night or two, on the way to or from somewhere, it's like I must do all these things - make my rounds, if you will. I must get to the top of both the bluffs behind the camp. I must go to the rock with the windsock, and get the view. I must swim off that point. And I must visit the MacKenzies, who I never see enough of, and see what new animals Aurora has added to her collection. And so on. When I'm there, I'm constantly late for meals (because I must also eat my mother's food), because there was somewhere to be, something to explore. Something I've probably explored a hundred times, but I am checking in.
But I don't go enough. I blame it on the distance (which is not inconsiderate), mostly. But it's also because it is too important. And as the years pass, and now with the retirement of the active housekeeping cottages part of the operation, it just gets harder. It's not just the camp I'm afraid of losing. Make of that what you will, but we're not going there.
Last time I was home, I had Hart and Ray with me - we were coming back from Isle Royale. They got their own cottage (now that we are closed, bringing people home is even more fun). Hart commented that he wanted to stretch his legs and maybe paddle a little bit. And I, innerly 10 years old again, I dragged him to many of my places, and I *showed* him. It was like show and tell, but heavier on the show. Look at this! Look how special it is! (But really, it is easier to show to a stranger and have him see how special it is than to deal with that on my own. ) And we ambled up bluffs, and we paddled, and we swam (but in a fashion born on the Isle Royale trip, we didn't communicate very well, and Hart went for a hike while I swam, and I wandered off when he came back). And then, because no trip with Hart is complete without a portage, we had a lazy trip down the 
Thessalon through Gordon Lake to the bailey bridge on West Road. And we were late for dinner, because our drifting meant slow progress. I was a few hundred meters ahead of Hart, and got entranced by sandhill cranes, and I watched the ravens and the turkey vultures and the cattle and the courting herons and the hawk. Hart later reported more wildlife that I'd missed (and dead-life, a dead horse in the river) that I'd missed. It's better that way, slowly paddling, and far apart from anyone else. You see more.
And there's no humour in this blog entry. There's only sadness. I don't understand that. How can I be sad for something that still is, and is wonderful at that? Why is it that it makes me sad for the time when (though I'd rather, "if") I lose it? I don't know.
I don't really want to know. I have no word for this in any language.