Kenneth Rae Dunphy (1914 — Dec 26, 2012)

We were always a family who cottaged. But for years we rented or visited places belonging to other people, often family friends. Of course, we should have had our own place —my father believed early-morning lake swims, the j-stroke, and splitting wood were at the core of being Canadian and he made sure my sister and I had all those skills. Okay, maybe not splitting wood. 

Then in the mid-70s, his old friend John Witbeck practically ordered him to buy one of the two lots he had for sale on Deep Bay. My father lost sleep over this but eventually bought the cheaper, scruffier one, threw up a $3,000 prefab meant for fishermen, shoved a couple of stray bricks on top of the concrete block foundations to steady the place, and pronounced it a family cottage. We all loved it. We were a family who believed in the smell of pine, Kahshe’s early-morning sparkle and its sudden serenity at sunset, the glittery granite sheltering sharp tough sprays of blueberries in pre-Cambrian crevices, the slam of the screen door, and sunny lunches of open-face tomato and cucumber sandwiches eaten in swimsuits.

The cottage itself was never much and over the years it became even less: a too-small shoddy, airless place with duct tape gripping the door frame, rusting ill-fitting windows that welcomed in any and all biting insects, rotting eaves troughs, and precarious wooden steps made dangerous with age. A dock big enough for only a single aluminum lawn chair that he would snap open with one hand and claim for himself. No screen porch, no stone fireplace – not then anyway — not enough space to sprawl on the floor to work on a puzzle or play extended games of Monopoly. But this is where he was happy. Even when that fire at Denne’s burnt our boat to a crisp. Or when beavers attacked – always his tallest, finest trees. When the old waterlogged dock he refused to replace tipped and sent him crashing against the rocks.

He was a professional engineer who traveled the world representing Canada at international standard and code-setting meetings. He was an accomplished bridge player, pianist, and, yes, figure skater. (Ice dancing, not the Patrick Chan triple-salchow stuff.)  He took up water skiing later in life but was pretty good at that as well. But what he was proudest of was the bunkie he built out back in ’81. He decided it deserved a certificate of merit which he produced using the calligraphy skills he acquired post-retirement. 

Even when I was well past (all right, decades past) voting age, he would stand on the dock to inspect my crawl stroke. He’d grab the boat keys from the yellow ceramic mug on top of the china cabinet to drive my daughter and friends whenever they wanted to waterski – even if a Jays game was on. He spent 30 summers on Kahshe, chopping wood, slashing errant junipers, and swimming from the dock to the eastern rocks at 4:30 p.m. every day — until he was 89. 

Even during his last few years and the onslaught of dementia, while living in a wonderful nursing home where he was treated with respect and tenderness, he would brighten – quicken — when we spoke of Kahshe. He died on Boxing Day at Toronto General Hospital. He was 98. This summer he’ll come back to Kahshe when we bury his ashes in a bend in the path beside my mother’s.