I attended what I thought was my last bush party a decade and a half ago. Back then I was home for the summer after my first year of university, which is also the last I spent any time here I wouldn’t call a visit.
This time I’ve got my own place, if you call living in a van having your own place (#VanLife), and some money in my pocket. Also this one was hosted by our fearless editor-in-chief, Jules Octavian, rather than some asshole Brownloafian kid. It might have been the best party I’ve ever attended.
Writing a travel piece about a private party you weren’t invited to might not seem fair but it’s the key to contextualizing Brownlow: we are, paradoxically, believers in private ownership.
Between these two parties I’ve seen a good chunk of the world. Working in tech has allowed me to live in several different cities across multiple continents. I hit the road as soon as remote work became an option, that way I didn’t have to depend on anyone or tie myself to any place. When I left Brownlow I was in search of…well maybe I wasn’t sure what I was in search of, just that I was in search of more. Despite having seen more of the world than most people all I know is how little I know. And now I know that Brownlow isn’t lacking things to do, it’s that the things worth doing are invite-only.
That’s because the supply of property in Brownlow has traditionally outweighed the demand and those who have stuck it out prefer it that way. It’s shaped the culture: with no obvious need for density we could put distance between ourselves and our neighbour. More than a few of us tend to live outside city limits and the houses tend to ramble, even the cheap ones. Perhaps especially the cheap ones. Why take your folding chair to the park and hide your beer in a travel mug when you can drink from the bottle in your back yard? Why go to the public pool when you’ve probably got a friend with an above ground? Why go to a cafe when you can make a better cup at home and linger as long as you want in your coziest corner? This isn’t true for everyone but it’s true for enough to lower demand for third spaces — ie ‘things going on.’
Currently I’m parked in a clearing at the back of Greg and Laurel’s new property. He snagged one of those rambling acreages they used to just give away before the housing crisis could bestow them with value. It’s funky and on the ‘needs work’ side of rustic, but it’s all very lovely. I began my day with yoga beside the pond and, given the privacy, indulged in a swim au natural afterwards. When I finished I popped around to see what Greg was up to and was offered a world-class cup of coffee. We drank it in the sunlight and wood tones of his bright dining room while listening to an old surf record crackle and pop on his home-brew stereo. As far as I know the only cafe that could compete with my morning are the ones at Japanese hot spring resorts and they require a plane ticket. It’s not that things don’t happen in Brownlow, it’s that they happen at home. It’s about who you know.
Fortunately, thanks to Greg, I now know Jules Octavian. I’m not fully clear on the history of this illustrious publication, the first I’d heard of it was when Greg coerced me into visiting home, but apparently the magazine hasn’t had multiple writers since Jules’ intern in the eighties. Naturally a party was in order so Greg and I jumped into his beat up Impreza and headed to what Jules likes to call ‘County Fence HQ.’ There we’d meet Walter, an old university friend of ours, and Brenda Hogg whom Jules brought on as Napanee correspondent just prior to Greg.
From the road HQ looks like any of the other ex-farms the crown once gave away for a dollar. The old farmhouse sits tidily by the road, the perfect distance for foot traffic though a little too close for car traffic. It’s where Jules grew up but these days is more of a retreat for friends and a film set for the odd period drama. Hidden behind the house is a sun-dappled farm track that looks like it disappears nowhere important just beyond the mature hardwoods that nearly obscure the sky. If you follow it, though, after a surprisingly long time you will emerge into a beautiful clearing with a solar-panelled three-car garage and a chic mid-century modern cabin hanging its screened porch over a bend in the river. There’s no way anyone who hasn’t already been here would know it existed and doesn’t even look like much on satellite maps. The house itself is beautifully appointed with a variety of oiled wood tones and stone. A wall of windows overlooks the river where he enjoys drinking scotch from his extensive collection while keeping tabs on the rotation of the world. Frankly, it’s glorious.
After dinner was when things got interesting. We were relaxing on the deck with full bellies, a bit of a buzz, and the smell of good cigars mingling with limestone river-water and toasty cedar when Brenda asked: why fences? Jules Octavian is not one to answer a question immediately, he thinks carefully before he speaks. So after a pause he gave us the same preamble you can find on the website (story found here) but ultimately said it was better to show than tell. Did we mind getting wet?
I often like to rock a swimsuit under my fabulous jumpsuits but that meant I was the only one who had come prepared. Brenda used the excuse of deer lurking on the roadside to make an exit and when it was just friends left Greg suggested that he wasn’t modest and the boys agreed with a nod from yours truly. Of course I joined them because you don’t have to tell me to skinny dip twice in one day. I guess that’s the Brownlow I never got to see during my misguided youth.
Jules put together some supplies in a picnic box he’d built himself out of oiled and waxed teak with hand-cut dovetails. The supplies consisted of the scotch we were working through, four crystal tumblers that fit into a little felt-lined tray on one side, a few ripe oranges, some marshmallows, bug spray, a lighter, a couple joints, and four beach towels. From behind the door he pulled two driftwood walking sticks with turks-head grips covered in carvings and handed one to me, informing us that the trail was easy but after a fall last year he wasn’t taking chances.
Outside a little rowboat was overturned on the sand that built up on the outside bend of the river. Walter and Greg righted it and Jules fit the box into a couple of brackets installed specifically for this purpose. Then we all undressed, tossed our clothes into the boat, and hit the refreshing water. The trailhead was just downriver on the opposite shore so we floated lazily and let the current do the work. As I stared up at the swirling pink sky, feeling the cool water on five sides and the muggy Ontario summer night on the sixth, I realized that the night did not need to get any better. It could end here and already be a great success.
We landed maybe two-hundred yards away on what could charitably be called a beach. Jules passed around towels and bug spray and after hastily dressing we headed up the small trail. Nothing was marked, just an uphill path trampled time and again over eight decades. A clearing at the top of a hill awaited us with small stone fire pit, a pine-log porch swing, two matching Muskoka chairs, and a coffee table made by nailing rough boards to two stumps. The whole thing overlooked a valley to the west where the sun set over rolling hills of forest and farm. Separating us from all of it was a mossy ancient stone fence.
Jules put Walter and Greg on building a fire from a neat wood pile while he approached the fence and leaned on his walking stick, gazing at the dusky sky and the darkening landscape. Pink above and the beginnings of mist in the oversaturated-green valleys. He crouched and put his hand on the cold moss-covered granite boulders and I thought I could hear him quietly talking. After a moment I approached and he greeted me with one of the joints. We puffed quietly for a few minutes before Walter and Greg joined us, the smell of pine and cedar smoke earnestly mixing with the damp night air.
“So this is the original fence?” Walter asked.
“This is it,” Jules replied.
“What’s on the other side?”
“Everything.”
Jules has never crossed that fence, it belongs to the neighbours. There are no fences on the Octavian farm and Jules says he respects boundaries. That’s how he’s kept on good terms with the neighbours all these years. There was no reason to put up the boundary in the first place, aside from needing somewhere to deposit the rocks and debris from clearing the fields, and he intended to keep it that way. He uses the driveway when he wants to visit, preferring not to sneak up on people who tend to own guns. Though that doesn’t stop him from speculating. “I think it’s more fun not to know,” he said.
There are better places to see the stars, but not many. The oddly extravagant light pollution from Brownlow somehow makes it out this far and the haze of the Great-Lakes summer humidity doesn’t help, though it is integral to the experience. We thought we could see the glow of the Golden Horseshoe on the horizon, nonetheless countless stars revealed themselves in an almost dizzying three dimensions. A light patch bisected the blue-black sky made by the density of stars in our spinning plate of a solar system. Maybe it’s not the best view, but it’s pretty damn good — and we had it all to ourselves.
The world as we understand it began with the invention of writing five-thousand years ago, which in cosmological time is the blink of an eye. We’re looking more or less at the same stars as the Sumerians: the people who made their famous cuneiform tablet and earliest recorded written language separating history from pre-history. As we shared stories around that fire and stared at the endless sky humanity didn’t feel so old. Computers and pyramids were contemporaries and entire human lives just little flashes of attempted meaning along the way. Some, like the stars above, shining on well after they’d been extinguished.
When the stories became sufficiently outlandish that they were difficult to follow, we headed back. This time Greg ferried each of us in the dinghy. Jules settled us in his two guest rooms after a midnight snack of smoked meat and seedy sour-dough from a uncharacteristically good local bakery. In the morning he made eggs Florentine and we did a few crosswords together before heading home. I’m sure this is not everyone’s experience of Brownlow but I think I can safely say I’ve finally experienced its best side.
-Rachael
