ABSTRACT
The author discusses the cottage as a site of 'masculine domesticity' for a group of middle class Canadian men, a place where their labours are seen to constitute 'real work', and which carry with them intense emotional rewards. In the discourse about the 'the cottage' it is continually constructed as a bucolic place, a place of unending leisure and fulfilment; a place where family and friends gather, and treasured memories are forged. Cottagers with whom he had conversations in the Haliburton region of Ontario would in large measure agree with these representations. But for many of them such blissful moments emerge only from the background of labour and industry that owning a cottage demands. However, this latter reality, he quickly learned from the male cottagers he interviewed, encapsulates its own dimensions of enticing rewards, pleasures and enjoyment, which can be as satisfying as any moments of leisure stolen at the end of the summer's day.
