Golden Lake — After several days of clean-up, summer and full-time residents of Golden Lake in the Deacon area got to enjoy some rest and relaxation on the Civic Day weekend, but with several less pine trees along the shore line to provide shade from the warm summer sun.
Following last Monday night’s wind storm that came off the lake at about 7:30, uprooting several large pine trees and bringing about seven of them down on cottages along the north shore, a week later things are mostly back to normal, but with a slightly different look to the landscape from the water.
Heavy cranes, chainsaws, wood chippers and a large excavator to remove stumps worked from last Tuesday to Friday to clean-up most of the debris and work continued Monday at the Mike and Ann Stoodley cottage, across from the Golden Lake Chinese Restaurant, where a large pine on the beach was uprooted and landed on their garage. That tree, along with some others on their property, were removed Monday.
Besides the trees that fell on structures owned by Tony Kunopaski of Aurora, and the Costello and Yeldon family cottages from Ottawa, several trees in the nearby Ministry of Transportation roadside park were also damaged and several more will be removed in the near future.

In addition to the trees that came down in the storm, several more have been removed as a precaution for the future and plans have been made by some cottage owners to remove others as a safety precaution.
Joe Costello, who shares ownership of the Costello family cottage with his brothers, Sean and Brian Jr., watched Friday as contents of the cottage were removed from the building and stored in a container until a new structure is erected.
Mr. Costello and his wife, Margaret along with their three daughters and their two friends arrived at the cottage last Monday for a week’s vacation. Mr. Costello had gone to the hospital in Barry’s Bay with one of his daughters when the storm hit. His wife and another daughter, and a friend, were inside the cottage and another daughter and a friend were in a tent trailer on the property when the storm hit.
While the families won’t be able to enjoy the cottage for the rest of this summer, because of the damage, plans will be made to build a new structure.
“We’ll be back here next summer on the beach and hopefully then we have a better vacation than we did this year,” he said.
Mr. Costello said what was to be a relaxing week turned into a work week, a week managing projects and people coming and going.
“It’s sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Nobody got hurt. We can lament all we want, but we can only go forward.”
Mr. Costello said it was amazing no one was hurt.
“It’s shocking,” he said. “They were good thinkers and hid where they did for awhile and got out before that area became unsafe. As I understand it, it was all over fairly quickly.”
Much of the tree removal in the area was done by Paul Thompson and his firm, North Renfrew Tree Removal. Mr. Costello and others were impressed with their work.
“They’ve been working really hard, long hours to get us fixed up so we can get in and rescue our stuff. I can’t thank them enough for what they are doing for us. They are a real professional crew. All hard workers and very professional.”
Four days after the storm, Jim Yeldon was amazed at the speed at which their property next to the Costellos was cleaned up.
Like his neighbour, he too was quite impressed with the Mr. Thompson’s response and clean-up.
“Paul answered the phone at midnight,” he said. “I called at midnight. I was just going to leave him a message because I wanted to get in the cue for work and he answers and says, ‘yep, I’ll be there at 6 o’clock in the morning’.”
Mr. Yeldon figured the summer property would be out of commission for half of the month of August, but by the weekend family members were enjoying the property that has been in the family for seven decades.
“They (family) are all amazed that we are getting these trees off as quickly and getting back to normal because now we can carry on with our holidays and our summer now.”
Other than the loss of several tall pines that provided a nice shade for the property, and a bunkie that was damaged, everything else is just fine.
While the trees will be missed, the family decided to remove several others as a safety precaution because of the changing climate.
“There are so many of these events now, I just don’t want them around. We’re not going to get as lucky if we left them the next time.”
Mr. Yeldon said the property has now taken on a whole different look, saying they can now sit and look out at the stars whereas before the trees hid the sky.
Mr. Yeldon’s sister, Nancy, was starting a week of vacation at the cottage when the storm struck. With her were her daughter, Sam, and son, Malcolm, and Sam’s girlfriends. They were eating supper when the wind came up.
“It happened so fast,” she said. “Sam looked out and saw the (rubber) island coming at us. Then all you could see was just mist, nothing else. I didn’t even know the trees had fallen on us.
Ms. Yeldon said there was no place to go, so she told the four to stand under the door frames.
“It was over so quick. It was crazy.”
Ms. Yeldon also believes this is going to be the new norm as weather patterns are changing.
“There is more extreme weather,” she said.
She and her sister, Gail, and family members visited the cottage just two weeks before the storm when tornado warnings were issued and they talked about what to do in the event one did strike.
“And Gail said, ‘you know, we never used to have conversations like this‘.”
Ms. Yeldon was also impressed with the cleanup.
“It’s so overwhelming to think they have gotten so much done in such a short period of time,” she said. “This team of workers is amazing.
“It’s actually kind of beautiful to walk out and see the view and have it open, but there is no shade,” she said.
Ann and Mike Stoodley of Ottawa had a large pine from their shore uproot and come down across their garage and on Monday, Don Garfat and his crew from Garfat Tree Service in Westmeath, along with Jason Duff of Arnprior and his crane, removed the tree in sections and also cut three other trees and topped a fourth as a precaution for the future.
Mrs. Stoodley was alone at the cottage when the storm struck.
“It almost sounded like a huge train going by,” she said. “And the dog was having a fit.”
The tree that came down on their garage caused minimal damage to the building as an oak tree closer to Highway 60 broke its fall.
“Luckily it was on the garage and not the cottage,” she said.