Summer May Be Ending, But We’ll Always Have ‘Sterling Point’

“I’m coming to the cottage,” Ilya Rozanov growled, and Canada has never been the same—at least the American film and TV industry’s depiction of it. The final episode of the first season of Heated Rivalry introduced the world to Canada’s cottage country, presenting the regions to the north of major cities where many families own second homes as a soft escape from the friction of urban life. In Heated Rivalry, as well as a slew of other recent shows, Canada’s rural expanses are not only lush, they’re sexy. There’s something about lakes, trees, and short shorts that loosens inhibitions, lest the summer be wasted. “A Canadian summer is fleeting and precious,” Every Year After author Carley Fortune said after her romance book was adapted into a British Columbia-based show in June. “That feels Canadian to me—it’s the lake, the dock, the boat, the mosquitoes.” As an American who’s lived in Canada for five years, I think the liberal American perception that Canada offers the American Dream without the facism has contributed a great deal to the country’s recent turn in the spotlight. The reality up here is less idyllic—Canada’s social programs are getting weaker, their discriminatory immigration system is simply less attention-seeking than the States’, and their right-wing figures are often just as repugnant. But Canada is nevertheless preferable to Trump’s America in many ways, and besides, romanticization has never relied on realism. Romance media set in rural Canada doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon.

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