The Hunter's Lodge - Part 1

[bdahunter]

Growing up as a kid in Toronto I always looked forward to our trips to Nan Hunter’s cottage on Big Clear Lake. Nan Hunter was an older, god fearing lady that was a close personal friend of my mother’s and a surrogate grandmother to her children after my maternal grandmother died from a brain tumor. The old cottage was clapboard on the outside and tongue and groove fir planking on the inside covered with varnish that had turned golden from exposure to decades of wood smoke. The cottage sat atop a low hill on 14 acres overlooking the lake and it was always a source of adventure for my siblings and I. Endless hours were wiled away catching frogs, fishing and swimming at the lake in Arden, Ontario. There was a weathered sign as you turned off Hwy #7 that read ‘The Garden of Arden’ and it was paradise on earth for all of us.





As much as we loved the cottage, there was always something a little strange about the place. Rooms would grow suddenly cold, small items would move when your back was turned (seemingly of their own accord) and occasionally some personal effects would go missing all together. It was an odd feeling that would overcome you on occasion as though someone was watching you, but when you looked around no one was to be seen. My sister and mother seemed to experience the worst of it as their things tended to be the ones that disappeared; we generally put it down to feminine forgetfulness but it was odd.
Often we would come to the cottage in the spring to help Nan open up and there would be a note on the kitchen table with a little money beside it thanking us for the use of the cottage to shelter from a storm or a breakdown until help could arrive from town (the cottage was very isolated on the far side of the lake from the Village of Arden). We never experienced a break in or vandalism of any kind and the local people tended to avoid the cottage on the hill.
As I grew older and made the long walk into the Village of Arden, I heard stories from the local people about the history of the cottage. It seems that two brothers had built the cottage back in the 1920’s on a point of land in the village but there was a property dispute so they bought the 14 acres that the cottage now sits on and when the ice was thick enough they hauled the cottage across the lake on thick sled runners, pulling the whole place with a team of Percherons. They slid the whole cottage up onto a fieldstone foundation they had built the summer before and this is where the cottage sits to this day. The views were spectacular and the hunting and fishing were excellent, which was a perfect setting for two brothers who loved to hunt and fish. The brothers named the cottage ‘Hunter’s Lodge’ and they guided for sportsmen who came to the area to enjoy the excellent hunting and fishing that the region provided. All went well for several years and the brothers prospered until the oldest brother met the town Belle at the county fair and fell head over heels for her. It was a local scandal, that the hunter and the blonde beauty were carrying on together and she was known to visit the ‘Hunter’s Lodge’ at all hours of the day and night. The dashing older brother and his beautiful sweetheart became engaged to quiet the talk that spreads like wildfire in the small community and a date for their wedding was set. The equally attractive younger brother wasn’t as happy about the announcement as would have been expected and became distant from his brother. The months leading up to the wedding were strained and the brothers no longer guided together but took out their hunting/fishing parties separately.
A few weeks before the wedding the older brother took a party of Americans fishing but one of the fishermen became ill so he rowed them back to the inn and headed back to the ‘Hunter’s Lodge’ early. As he approached the lodge he heard voices inside so he approached quietly through the side door and to his shock and despair he found his younger brother and his bride-to-be entwined on the floor of the lodge. The brothers argued and the faithless fiancée retreated to the bedroom to clothe herself. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and she hurried into the main room to see her husband-to-be lying dead on the floor, blood leaking from a hole in his chest. The younger brother was standing over the fallen man, a rifle in his hands and a look of horror and despair on his face; he had killed his own brother in a struggle inspired by jealousy. The belle fled the scene and the authorities were alerted to the crime. The younger brother surrendered peacefully and was sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. The locals claimed that the lodge has been haunted ever since then and avoided it whenever possible. My Nan and her husband purchased the cottage after it had been empty for several years and Nan nursed her husband there as he slowly succumbed to tuberculosis during the Great Depression.
Eventually Nan grew too old to manage the cottage and she sold it to my family and it has been part of our lives ever since. It’s changed quite a bit, with additions and renovations over the years but it is still, ‘The Cottage’ and several generations of Wainwrights have come of age there.

[Buster]

Good story BDA...will await part #2...Buster...

[Cash1977]

BDA-
Cool story. I love stories about haunted places. There are some wierd occurences at Mrs. Cash's sister's house.
Objects moving. Faucets turning on. Strange noises.

I can't wait for part 2.

Happy Haunting!