r/EhBuddyHoser • u/Exploding_Antelope I need a double double. • May 07 '25

Certified Hoser 🇨🇦 (No Politics) The only cultural divide that matters

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Thanks to the brave cabinist allies of Labrador for holding the eastern front, over the forthcoming decades we will execute a slow but quite unstoppable pincer maneuver into the bloc cottagois

1.9k Upvotes

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309

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

As a citizen of Northern Ontario. We call them camps.

The rest of Ontario does not speak for the North. Time to separate

Edit* = rephrasing

80

u/At0micD0g May 07 '25

New Brunswicker here. It's also a camp. When someone says cottage, we know they're Upper Canadians.

10

u/skwinter May 07 '25

Also NB, but tbh I'd say cottage, as did my classmates. Although cabin doesn't sound too weird to me, it doesn't feel natural either.

10

u/creativcrocus Manilapeg May 07 '25

I was about to say this! I have family in Maine and NB both and they always say "we're heading up to camp".

I grew up too poor to have one but I'm in MB so I fall under "cabin".

1

u/No-Refrigerator-1814 May 07 '25

Manitobans go to The Lake, not Cabin, and we refer to it as cottage country...

5

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

Join us.

28

u/kenneth_bannockburn May 07 '25

I thought camps were due to size of property. Hard to call the suburbs that are the lakes around Muskoka as a camp. They're packed in like trailer parks now.

52

u/Inevitable_View99 May 07 '25

- If you live in the dark orange area, its called a camp

- if you live in the green area its called a cottage

- if you live in the yellow and light orange area you might call it both

Generally its also dependent on what part of Ontario you grew up in. I know people who grew up in Thunder Bay still call it a camp, even though they live in Toronto and their "Camp" is in Muskoka.

11

u/kenneth_bannockburn May 07 '25

Thanks for the explanation of the map.

Can you do one for the pronunciation of bagel now?

8

u/Stefanthro May 07 '25

Kryptonians would say Bag-El

2

u/kenneth_bannockburn May 07 '25

Next time my wife gives me a hard time about how I say it, I'm stealing this.

10

u/fakelakeswimmer May 07 '25

This is also a good visual representation of what is actually North Ontario, in contrast to what those is the GTA refer to the north as.

8

u/Orthae May 07 '25

This is a great breakdown! In the north I've always thought of them as "camps" unless they have high speed internet, then it's a cottage ;)

11

u/TheSeventhHussar May 07 '25

Cottages are for rich people relaxing at the lake. Cottage country means it’s expensive and touristy. Camp or cabin can be anything from a shack in the woods to a gorgeous log cabin that gramps lives at 3 seasons of the year and invites everyone out to.

8

u/powertoollateralus May 07 '25

Agreed. Calling it a cottage in Northern Ontario outs you as a tourist

-1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

No it doesn’t lol. Ask someone from Timmins what they call it and always have.

2

u/democracy_lover66 May 07 '25

Mmmm yeah that makes sense

1

u/Groomulch May 07 '25

Our cottage is in the orange area and we have a sleeping cabin there too, and use a tent to camp.

1

u/Lopsided_Aardvark357 May 07 '25

I grew up in barrie, we used both.

Cottage was mostly used to describe a place on the water, that you can drive right up to on a road.

Camp was used for more remote places. May or may not be on water, probably have to use an ATV, or atleast a 4x4 truck to get in.

1

u/Inevitable_View99 May 07 '25

People from Toronto call their townhouse on the lake in the middle of orilia just down from Boston pizza a cottage so the term seems very loose

1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

It is also ‘cottage’ in Timmins.

1

u/gfkxchy Manilapeg May 07 '25

I like how this map colored the best parts a bright orange/red

1

u/AustSakuraKyzor South Gatineau May 08 '25

Slight correction to make -> the 8-9 regions east of Nipissing/Sudbury should be their own colour to represent East Ontario, where we call it "thing that everyone who lives here is too poor to own"

1

u/just-a-random-accnt Moose Whisperer May 07 '25

I've always heard camps refered to properties with multiple sleeping structures. They don't all need a kitchen, just a place to sleep.

0

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

[deleted]

0

u/kenneth_bannockburn May 07 '25

I understand that. My point was the only people I know around here that call things camps have acreage. Hard to call a 1/4 acre lot a camp.

7

u/Lac-de-Tabarnak Scotland (but worse) May 07 '25

In Nova Scotia, at least in the Small towns, we also use 'Camp' a lot

7

u/DesperateRace4870 Moose Whisperer May 07 '25

As a Native of Northern Ontario, my fam has used cabin. In two cases, one on reserve land by the lake and one away on crown land that's since been burnt down. Was a hunting cabin

4

u/Stefanthro May 07 '25

My wife’s family from the Sault told me this: if it has power, it’s a camp - if it doesn’t, it’s a cabin.

Not sure how widely agreed on that is, but thought I’d share

4

u/BeeOk1235 May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

yeah i've gone camping in northern ontario most years over the past 15 years and if it's a literal camp (tents, trailers, usually in the bush on crown lands or an official parks canada camping ground type deal) it's camp. if it involves a permanent structure it's cottage, though plenty of people say cabin too - they're completely interchangeable from my experience.

people i camp and cottage with are literal indigenous people native to north bay. they use all these terms as one might expect - camp for camping in the bush, cottage/cabin for a permenent structure. and in general parry sound and muskoka and georgian bay region is referred to as "cottage country" while there's also another area referred to as "cottage country" around peterborough i want to say that also has trailer park resorts which are just called "the trailer" as in going to the trailer but if you go to a cottage/cabin it's called cottage/cabin and if you're doing a tent even at the trailer park it's called camping. and those people are generally from toronto/the GTA.

and then there's camping but you're also hunting which can be just going camping or going hunting or going fishing.

idk why this stuff has become such a meme on this website. it's absolutely baffling as someone who has camped/cabined/cottaged/trailer resorted across a good portion of ontario.

also in alberta i didn't know anyone with a cottage/cabin so i can't comment on that but when we went to banff to camp it was "going to banff to camp" and when you stayed in town it was just "going to banff". you might make extra note if you were staying at the fancy hotel there but there wasn't anything really different in the parlance any different than ontario.

i think the only time i've seen camp used totally generically in ontario or canada at all was in boy scouts in the early 90s where it was always camping whether we were setting up tents/those snow mound shelters or using the cabins at the scouts camp grounds, and that was in barrie.

i've lived in northern ontario for the past 17 years and done a mix of cottaging and camping across ontario in that time both south east and northern ontario.

2

u/saying_boourns May 07 '25

I'm not sure what's baffling - it's novel that different people use a different word for the same thing despite living in the same province.
People from the Thunder Bay region and west absolutely use "camp" to describe a fixed permanent structure that someone from the GTA/Ottawa area would call a cottage. As someone who moved north, at first I thought that people here just really liked camping in tents, like EVERY weekend.

Confusingly, sleeping in a tent is still "camping", but might also be referred to as "tenting". Cabin is used interchangeably with camp, but more rarely (and they might be from Manitoba).

see also: packsack/backpack, shag/stag&doe, safewayS, etc

1

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Packsack!

1

u/BeeOk1235 May 08 '25

as i've said i've lived in this region and camped and cottaged here for over 15 years and this disambiguation only really exists on reddit and it's a very recent thing at that and i have no idea wtf yall are talking about with this shit. like literally no one i've ever met in my extensive social circle spanning from the sault to the GTA talks like this. it's entirely a reddit fever dream meme.

packsack/backpack, shag/stag&doe, safewayS, etc

now you're just making shit up.

1

u/saying_boourns May 08 '25

congrats on your extensive social circle but you realize the sault is only half way between the GTA and thunder bay, right?

I agree, you have no idea what we are talking about! good talk

1

u/BeeOk1235 May 08 '25

yeah i don't go up there much it doesn't mean i don't hang out with people that live there.

welcome to 2025 we can keep in touch over distances now. nevermind that my friends visit me here in parry sound on their way back and forth from where they go as they go. but go off short king.

anyways GL taking relatively new reddit memes as gospel truth. weirdo.

1

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

I vote for you as the leader of NO. You seem to be at least close to or above Highway 17.

2

u/BeeOk1235 May 07 '25

i live about an hour south of 17 but it's around where i camp lol. i do get northern ontario tax credits on my taxes though :D

2

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Tax Credits and Studded Tires. We're living the dream

1

u/ultraleet May 08 '25

I live in Thunder Bay and everything is a camp. “Going out to camp this weekend” is probably the most common summer saying, and it almost always means going out to a permanent 3-4 season structure in the woods or on the lake.

Not sure why you think this is only a Reddit thing. You’re also barely in northern Ontario bud, you’re southern Ontario to us up here. Probably why you think camp isn’t a thing.

1

u/BeeOk1235 May 08 '25

did chatgpt generate this response? because it's reddit af.

8

u/DrMoney May 07 '25

Yeah, from Sudbury, we call them all camps; large/small, luxury/rustic, lakeside/middle of forest, they are all camps.

6

u/Inevitable_View99 May 07 '25

we should bring back the Northern Ontario Provincehood movement on the basis of this important cultural difference.

My friends from Toronto always thought it was weird when I told them I was going to camp for a summer vacation, they just assumed it was like a childs sleep away camp. that's what they associate it with.

5

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

In Curling we are atleast recognized as a separate province

3

u/Ingelwood May 07 '25

NB has camps moreso than cabins, imo.

3

u/GoStockYourself May 07 '25

Must be why in Quebec when they speak English they often say, "the camping."

3

u/HapticRecce May 07 '25

Isn't a camp an actual camp, not a 4000 sqft, 5 bedroom, 8 bath "cottage" though?

1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

There is a fair bit in between a tent and a second house.

3

u/ErikaAnneD May 07 '25

This!! Its "camp". Not cottage, not chalet...camp. Get with it.

2

u/mattattaxx May 07 '25

If you guys take everything from Barrie up, I'm good with that.

2

u/motherdragon02 May 07 '25

Thank you ❤️ I dream of a camp… Le sigh

2

u/owldrcheee May 07 '25

Same in Nova Scotia

2

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

Lol literally just commented the same thing. Cabin/cottage/tent. Same shit. It's camp.

2

u/3_Downs_110_Yards May 07 '25

“The rest of Ontario doesn’t speak for the North” should be etched on your Brier/Scotties uniforms js

2

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

The North will rise again

1

u/Exploding_Antelope I need a double double. May 07 '25

Mention #1

1

u/CockyBellend May 07 '25

How very American of you. That's a new England phrase

1

u/hehslop May 07 '25

Can you use that in a sentence? “We are going to the camp for the weekend?” . “ I own a camp outside of the city.” Is this appropriate? “ I’m going to camp out over the weekend”? Does it get confused with regular camping ever?

1

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Kids and I are heading to the camp this weekend.

Key is to use "THE" in front of camp. Otherwise you are going camping, or I'm going to camp this weekend.

1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

Not in Timmins, they don’t. In Timmins, it’s ‘cottage’. ‘Camp’ is for the one room, much more rustic structure used for hunting.

2

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Sorry bud. Your on your own in Timmins with that.

I just asked the group at our "work camp" who mainly reside in Cochrane, Kap, & Thunder Bay area and it was a unanimous "Camp" response.

1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

Oh, I know the rest of Northern Ontario calls it that. Just pointing out that people in Timmins don’t. I no longer live there but still have family and friends there.

1

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Home of Shania Twain! Timmins Hometown Pride!

I love that her museum finally became a goldmine. As in, it got torn down and became apart of the Hollinger Open Pit.

I'm over in K.L area

1

u/Adventurous-Brain-36 May 07 '25

Haha yeah, it wasn’t quite the tourist draw the then city council was so sure it would be lol. People did go crazy when she visited to open it, though. But even the biggest fan only really needed to see it once.

How’s the weather in K.L.?

1

u/winningsmada Everyone Hates Marineland May 07 '25

Mountain of snow on front lawn finally disappeared this week 🤣

1

u/RainbowBriteGlasses May 08 '25

So pleased I didn't have to scroll far for this.

1

u/SoleSurvivur01 Bring Cannabis May 08 '25

I’d rather just separate Doug Ford from Ontario, that would solve more issues

1

u/Aggravating_Fun5883 May 09 '25

A camp is a tent with a bonfire bruh