Skip to content

Pamela Gough

Winter 2025-26: Happiest of holidays from Fancy Free Island

As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time to look back on the happy times people have had at Fancy Free over the years. We are grateful to all the families who have chosen Fancy Free as the place where their happiest summer memories are made. Laughter and high spirits get somehow absorbed in the very walls of Fancy Free cottage and much of this is documented in the memorabilia left in the guest book. Our guests have given us poems, photos, hand- made cards, heartfelt inscriptions, and sometimes even short essays and artwork that capture their memories. The children in particular love to leave their drawings. We have many magic-marker-made depictions of the front porch, the view of the lake, the view out of the windows in their rooms, and the cottage as seen from the front dock. They are all delightful and we cherish them. So let’s take a peek at the guest books, shall we? Here are some more comments guests have left behind:  “Words cannot describe this past week: family, friends, fun, laughter, smiles, happiness…I will always remember my three and a half year old, Maddie, learning how to swim off the dock…” D.O., Ottawa, July 8-16, 2011 “We had a great week on Fancy Free Island! The weather included a “monster” thunderstorm, scorching heat, howling winds and gorgeous sunshine… in short, it was perfect! Our gang made excellent use of the kitchen and bbq- we ate like kings and queens! The sailing was terrific…we put the Sunfish to good use. Glad you had kayaks and canoes- it’s a great way to visit the shoreline and get lost among the islands across the way…” J.E., Ottawa, July 16-23, 2011 “Yet another fabulous year at Fancy Free Island. Our second year will not be our last. Weather… Read More »Winter 2025-26: Happiest of holidays from Fancy Free Island

Fall 2024: Autumn on Fancy Free Island – Northern Lights and stunning sunsets 

All seasons are beautiful when you live surrounded by nature, as we are at Fancy Free, but September and October are our favourite months on Big Rideau. Daytime temperatures are far more comfortable for outdoor adventures than summer’s heat. The romance of viewing the sunset from the tip of the island coincides happily with the dinner hour. The hues of the forests slowly change from green to brillant flame, so that every day there are new surprises in store. Birds are migrating. Geese fly in flocks over the cottage frequently, and noisily. On or off the island, it’s a moveable feast of colour and sound. In this blog post I’ll give you a glimpse of some of the things that made the autumn of 2024 very special. But first, for those who have not yet had a holiday on Fancy Free and would like to book a rental in 2025, there are still some beautiful weeks available. Just check the frequently updated calendar here on the website, and fill out the booking form here. We look forward to introducing you to the wonders of nature at Fancy Free Island, a uniquely beautiful Canadian gem. As October progresses, the woods become lushly multicoloured, with some trees glowing almost fluorescent orange against the vivid blue of the lake. Autumn in the Rideau Lakes makes it easy to imagine what it would be like to live inside a Group of Seven painting. Life is all around you, in full technicolor. One reason that nature is so vivid on Fancy Free lies in the fact that the Island has a broad, unimpeded view of the western sky over Big Rideau Lake. This means that on every clear night we are literally bathed in the sunset. which is inevitably glorious. As the sun sinks below the horizon, banners… Read More »Fall 2024: Autumn on Fancy Free Island – Northern Lights and stunning sunsets 

Summer 2024: That summer feeling… there’s nothing so good!

It‘s June 2024 and Fancy Free is now open for summer! It’s finally here, the time when Canada kicks back and enjoys the long, lazy days of summer.  At Fancy Free, the canoes, paddleboard and kayaks are ready for fun. Here they are laid out expectantly, on the Fancy Free boathouse dock.  Many happy adventures await our Fancy Free paddling explorers. Big Rideau Lake is exceptionally large and dotted with bays and islands, making it a paddler’s paradise. A trip to Portland village by water is always a challenging excursion. By canoe or kayak on a calm day it will take about an hour.  Or, for a short paddle of 20 minutes, head over to nearby Colonel By Island, open to the public and owned by Parks Canada. Here you will find dockage, hiking trails, a tennis court, and picnic sites.  The entire township of Rideau Lakes is a nature lover’s paradise with beautiful trails, picnic areas, and parks. History is everywhere in this region where many families trace their ancestry back to the United Empire Loyalist era of over 200 years ago. Check out this new guide to picnic places and heritage spaces in Rideau Lakes township. ROOM WITH A VIEW Here’s the view that we see every morning as we crunch our breakfast toast. Click on the video to see out the kitchen window on the channel side of Fancy Free island. The lake animates every window- it’s constantly in motion, tiny sparkling waves that catch the light and play in the wind. What an amazing way to start the day! AUTUMN BOOKINGS STILL AVAILABLE  The spectacular fall colours of the Rideau Lakes area draw visitors from the North American eastern seaboard and beyond. Fancy Free is open until the end of the first week of October. Good… Read More »Summer 2024: That summer feeling… there’s nothing so good!

Fall 2023: Social media, high speed internet, pollinator gardens, exciting fish catches

SOCIAL MEDIA We love to share the beauty of Fancy Free Island in photos and videos. You can click here to access our new Instagram account! If you have photos or videos about Fancy Free Island please feel free to share your experience using the #FancyFreeIsland hashtag! HIGH SPEED INTERNET We have increased our internet plan to provide unlimited data during July and August. Our unlimited internet plan means that our guests can freely stream music and videos. They now have the best of both worlds- the serenity and peace of a private island set in the spectacular semi-wilderness of Big Rideau Lake, combined with the advantages of access to the latest in technology when needed.  NEW POLLINATOR GARDENS We are renovating Fancy Free’s gardens to increase the diversity of native plants on the island. For many decades Fancy Free Island was known for the beautiful peony gardens that ringed it, tended by Aunt Margaret Washburn, who owned it for many years. Postcards in the mid 20th century show the island with its peony gardens in full bloom, the height of the European-oriented cottage gardening standards of the time. In keeping with our commitment to the biodiversity of the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, we are replanting the gardens with native species attractive to pollinators. We’ve added several new species of milkweed, the plant host of the endangered Monarch Butterfly. Other new native plants include Blazing Star and Veronica.  We are also growing native shrubs such as Red-Osier Dogwood around the perimeter of the island. They provide foliage and forage for birds in the ecologically important littoral zone between the water and the land. Overhanging shrubs also provide important shade for fish habitat.  CATCH OF THE YEAR! One of our 2023 guests, Allan Doyle, caught a large pike off the front dock this summer.… Read More »Fall 2023: Social media, high speed internet, pollinator gardens, exciting fish catches

Newsletter January 2023

Welcome to 2023! As you are reading this you are probably dreaming of the upcoming summer and thinking about what life at a cottage on an island in Big Rideau Lake might be like. Let’s do a thought experiment and pretend you are going to Fancy Free Island for the first time, and it’s mid-June. First, turn your sound on and listen. It’s six in the morning. You are standing on the little silken beach at the northeastern edge of Fancy Free Island looking out over the lake. The view is of the channel in Big Rideau Lake between Fancy Free Island and the mainland, which widens out as it goes off to the distance. The sky is gradually lightening and the birds are awake. All around, you can hear a new day beginning. It’s the spring breeding season, so the songbirds nesting on Fancy Free are acting on their territorial instincts. The adults at this point in the late spring are usually either incubating eggs or feeding their young ones. Male birds are responsible for protecting the nest by keeping interlopers at bay. Singing is an important part of territory signalling for birds, so the males move from perch to perch around the edges of their territories, boldly repeating their songs. Every species has its own song, and sometimes it may have an extra element such as a special series of notes that makes it regionally unique. Occasionally songs may even vary slightly from one individual to another, but they always stay recognizably that of one species, and unlike any other. This makes it easy to identify what kinds of birds are in the vicinity, without even seeing them. You just need to listen. This morning the Song Sparrows are active and their melodic notes provide the main fabric… Read More »Newsletter January 2023

Newsletter December 2021

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2021, Tom and I would like to thank all the visitors, guests, friends, family and neighbors who made Fancy Free part of their lives over the year. We truly appreciate your coming to Fancy Free and wish you and yours a joyful and meaning-filled holiday season. While we hope to see you again in the future, we understand that some of you will be travelling on to explore other places and might not be able to return. We hope your memories of Fancy Free in the summer of 2021 will remain in your thoughts as a very special place and time. Isolarii is Italian for “island texts” and is a term for a genre of small books from Renaissance-era Venice that were dedicated to a single idea or perspective. The name references the concept of an island as a unique place in itself, a place that is splendid in its isolation. As we all emerge from a year of isolation and dislocation, the concept of an island as a place of respite is one that resonates for many of us. Island keepers are something like lighthouse keepers. They tend to be stewards of their special landmarks. In this respect Tom and I could be called radical preservationists. We delight in keeping Fancy Free largely as it has been all along and refraining from imprinting the 21st century on it.  I remember my first glimpse of the living room, with its movie-set-like quality. It felt like I was stepping back in time. The overstuffed sofa and chairs, the chintz curtains, the photos and memorabilia on the walls, and the antique hutches with vintage china on display, the stuffed fish- it was like being in an Agatha Christie book. I expected Hercule Poirot to come… Read More »Newsletter December 2021

Newsletter November 2020

A UNESCO-Acclaimed Landscape: Daydreaming and Day Tripping at Fancy Free: When Fancy Free reopens for the season in May 2021, it will be 140 years old. Since the time it was built, it has been passed down within the original families. Amazingly, it has never been sold. Our guests tell us that the exclusivity and authenticity of Fancy Free is the best possible antidote to the stresses of the pandemic and the hectic pace of modern life. It’s hard to describe, but on Fancy Free Island you get a sense of being in a place that is somehow set apart from the everyday. Boaters wave and smile as they go by. Fancy Free is part of the landscape of the region but because it’s is a little separated from the mainland it has that special mystique that islands convey. It’s rooted in the past but very much part of the present- like living in a little resort that’s been there since Victorian times. You even get the sense that there’s a bit of time travel going on with it. If you close your eyes in the living room, it’s easy to imagine opening them and being in the 1940s or even earlier. A cozy fall night on the sofa watching something from the cottage CD collection of classic Humphrey Bogarts really brings this feeling on! There are some very good reasons why Fancy Free feels like such a special place. It is located in an area that is recognized by UNESCO as being world class in two ways. Big Rideau Lake is not only part of UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s also on the edge of a the Frontenac Arch, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. This means that along with its deep and well-preserved historical heritage, the area around Fancy Free… Read More »Newsletter November 2020

Newsletter August 2020

Hello all, it’s Pam writing to you from Fancy Free cottage. It’s been a glorious summer on Big Rideau Lake. We hope you have had a chance to get away and enjoy a classic Canadian  “C” – cabin, campsite or cottage. Here’s a quick update and some Eastern Ontario insider tips. There are still some good weeks available at Fancy Free before the 2020 season ends. We are taking bookings now for 2021 as well. If you are interested, please fill out the inquiry form here. People often ask us what our favourite month is at Fancy Free. The answer might surprise you – or maybe not. It’s September.  Most of September is very summery here in southern Ontario. Summer this year officially goes from June 20 to the September equinox on September 22nd. That means that on Big Rideau Lake, temperatures are still warm and sometimes even hot during the day for a good part of the month- ideal for a lakeside cottage. But unlike mid-summer, the evenings cool down beautifully in September and all the biting insects completely disappear. You can lie out at night and watch the display of stars and planets roll across the night sky to your heart’s content. It gets dark earlier in the evening, which is a bonus to star gazers since you don’t have to stay up past midnight. Fancy Free is in a dark sky area so if it’s clear you can see a spectacular array of constellations. Sleep comes easily under one of Fancy Free’s fluffy duvets. If the morning air has a chill to it, all the better for making a fire in Fancy Free’s Swedish wood stove, whipping up a batch of pancakes, topping them with local maple syrup, then going for a paddle in the canoe off the dock of Fancy… Read More »Newsletter August 2020

Newsletter June 2020

Summer is a time for joyful renewal in Canada. This year, it seems that more people than ever are seeking a nature-based retreat as a way to counter the stress and strain of our weeks of lockdown due to COVID-19. It’s been a very difficult year for many. We are putting together summer plans in the midst of much uncertainty about what government restrictions will stay in place, and what this will mean for the cottage rental season.  As Fancy Free’s owners, we want to ensure complete compliance with government regulations on the use of cottages over the summer. We have modified our procedures so that when the way is clear for our guests to come, they will be safe, and they in turn will keep those around them in the Rideau Lakes community safe as well. Since this year is an exceptional one, we have loosened our cancellation policy to make sure that our guests will not be out of pocket if they (or we) need to cancel as a result of a COVID-related change in plans.  One thing that is certain is that summer is coming, and it will be beautiful. So to put you in a summer mood, we’ve gathered together some photos from our album that show Fancy Free in June, which is one of the most spectacular months of the year.  First, with an island cottage it’s all about the water. Big Rideau Lake’s water levels are controlled by Parks Canada using the dams and locks in the Rideau Canal system. In the spring, the water level is allowed to rise to let the spring meltwater work its way through the system. The water level changes a lot during the course of the year, with the spring having the highest water level and the fall… Read More »Newsletter June 2020

Newsletter January 2020

As we move into a new year and a new decade, I’d like to take a few moments to thank the many people who have helped to make Fancy Free the very special spot that it is. Some of these are friends, some are family, some are neighbours, and some are guests who over the years have made Fancy Free their home away from home for a week or two and often return or keep in touch in various ways. All are important to us, as they are part of that rare, intangible sense of connectedness to the past that people feel once they settle into a day or two of life on Fancy Free island.  History and the present day meld together seamlessly. Indeed, our introduction to all guests includes the idea that just by being there, they become part of the history of Fancy Free too. Not much has changed over the years on Fancy Free island, since somehow the beauty of the island and the recipe that was first used to build and furnish the cottage at Fancy Free is so timeless that there seems to be no need to improve upon it. The views out of each window of the sparkling waters of Big Rideau Lake are endlessly hypnotic. The joys of swimming and boating, of reading on the porch or slacking off in the hammock, of group meals al fresco around the picnic table by the barbeque, or gatherings around the fire pit, or playing ball or badminton on the lawns or board games around the table, all have been enjoyed in much the same way by generation after generation for almost 150 years.  One of the comments that we hear often is the sense of peace, family togetherness and psychic restoration that people experience… Read More »Newsletter January 2020