No power needed

The New York Times started the trend with a big story about off-grid second homes by Billie Cohen. Now the Toronto Globe and Mail has got in on the act, running a story about a weekender couple with solar panels and no mains. This story will run and run.

The Globe featured Laura Hawthorne talking about her cottage, a 500-square-foot building on South Beaver Lake in Haliburton. It was the perfect size, Ms. Hawthorne says, with a master bedroom, living room and kitchen area, second bedroom and a bathroom. There was one thing missing, however: electricity.

“They had cut off [the] electricity,” she says, because the previous owner had recently died. But in the end, Ms. Hawthorne and Mr. Forbes decided to stay off the grid permanently.

The west-facing cottage was small, she explains, noting: “We already had solar lights along the shoreline.” So they bought three small solar panels, and have powered the cottage that way – on weekends and sometimes for longer periods – ever since.

“I’m amazed at how well it does work,” she says. “When the power goes out [in other people's houses], we can watch TV.”

Leaky septic tanks, well-manicured beach lines, and excessive amounts of waste dumped into landfills where bears run rampant are all elements that leave a sizable carbon footprint, contradicting cottagers’ back-to-nature mentality.

Ms. Hawthorne and Mr. Forbes, and others like them, have found ways to avoid some of the harmful elements of cottage living that modern technology has made possible, and as a result, they are living tranquilly within the environment rather than hurting it.

The initiatives of people like Ms. Hawthorne and Mr. Forbes are getting increasing attention from cottage neighbours, however, and more and more of them are hopping on the green bandwagon.

Ms. Hawthorne says that after they installed the solar panels, some curious but skeptical neighbours were won over and installed solar lights of their own.

“We were the only ones on the lake [using solar power] and people were surprised. They’d never seen solar before.”

But solar panels and lighting were only the beginning for the couple.

In what could be described as an environmental overhaul, carried out over the next few years, they installed an airtight woodstove and a composting peat-moss toilet, built an outdoor shower that uses solar energy to heat the water, put in a recycled sink that gets its water via a solar pump, and raised the cottage onto blocks so it wouldn’t cause as much damage to the landscape. They also don’t mow their lawn or clear away rocks from the shoreline.

“It’s really funny when you realize how little you need to survive,” Ms. Hawthorne muses. “The first weekend was challenging. We didn’t realize it wasn’t insulated.”

That didn’t stop them though – they upgraded the insulation and later built a porch on the back end of the cottage, to which the solar panels are now attached.

“We’re actually thinking of doing a wind turbine this year,” she says.

Their motivation for all these changes? A genuine love of the environment, Ms. Hawthorne says. And, contrary to the perceptions of some consumers, they found that going green wasn’t more expensive.

They’ve put somewhere in the ballpark of $5,000 to $7,000 into renovations since they bought the cottage.

Their supplies have come from stores such as Canadian Tire and Home Depot, and recyclable material for furniture from friends and neighbours.

“Sun’s just renewable and it doesn’t cost anything,” she says. “People think they have to buy a $30,000 system. They don’t.”

Ms. Hawthorne grew up cottaging in the Haliburton area, a family tradition that ecologist Gord Nielsen thinks helped form her green values.

Mr. Nielsen is president of the environmental firm Michalski Nielsen Associates Ltd., based in Bracebridge, Ont., and has done consulting work involving cottages, golf courses and resort developments.

He says some cottagers have always been acutely aware of the environment, but that that kind of awareness and respect is growing. It’s not, however, a trend in the conventional sense, he adds; it’s a return to cottage days of old.

“We see a lot of old cottage properties that were built in the early 1900s. I’m always impressed when I look at those properties in the way they relate to the landscape,” he says. “When I look at cottages built in the 60s, 70s and 80s I don’t see that. … What I see amongst cottagers today is a return to that tradition of cottaging. It’s not so we can go wakeboarding or jet-skiing, it’s so [we] can enjoy those simple things. ”

But trends and nostalgia aside, Mr. Nielsen wants first-time cottage builders and buyers to make sure their property is far enough away from the shoreline so that it’s not harmful to the surrounding environment.

“The No. 1 thing – particularly for new cottages, but also for a cottage someone is buying – is to protect the area between your cottage and the lake.”

Mr. Nielsen recommends building a cottage at a minimum of about 100 feet back from the shoreline, if possible.

When you are buying an existing cottage, you can’t do much about that, he says, but, in terms of the landscape, you can “start changing the way you look at that area.

“Stop cutting the grass. Try to get it growing back naturally again. Have a footpath [rather than a constructed stairway] down to your dock and your boathouse,” he says. “It has a direct impact on water quality. If it’s left as natural forest, water moves down there very slowly, gets lots of filtration as it does, and comes into the lake very clean.”

Checking your septic system regularly to make sure it’s in good shape is another crucial way to be kind to the environment, he says. And, of course, if you want to make a major change to your cottage, solar or geothermal heating systems are two environmentally sound ways of doing it.

Ms. Hawthorne says not all cottagers have to start by getting themselves off the grid right away. “They can try the simple things: low-flow toilets, changing incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent light bulbs. Try solar lights outside. They even have solar house numbers now,” she says, adding: “Try not to leave lights on, computers on.

“I think it’s easier, instead of telling, to show people it’s not that complicated.”