Not telling you that to bring you down. Telling you because the best of Muskoka summer is sitting right in front of you, and the light is already, quietly, on its way out.
So don't sleep through it. We mean that literally.
July is the month of the magic hours. Mornings when the lake is glass and it's just you, a coffee, and a loon that hasn't clocked you yet. Evenings that go gold and hang there well past nine, when nobody wants to be the one who leaves the dock first. There's more daylight right now than there will be again all year, and it leaves a few minutes at a time. July 1 hands you 15 hours and 33 minutes of it. By August 1 you're down to 14 hours and 41 minutes. Nearly an hour, gone, in a single month.
Here's the whole year, if you want to see where we stand:
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:55 AM | 4:45 PM | 8h 50m |
| February | 7:37 AM | 5:24 PM | 9h 48m |
| March | 6:55 AM | 6:04 PM | 11h 09m |
| April | 6:57 AM | 7:44 PM | 12h 47m |
| May | 6:06 AM | 8:22 PM | 14h 16m |
| June | 5:33 AM | 8:56 PM | 15h 23m |
| July | 5:34 AM | 9:07 PM | 15h 33m |
| August | 6:02 AM | 8:43 PM | 14h 41m |
| September | 6:39 AM | 7:53 PM | 13h 14m |
| October | 7:15 AM | 6:57 PM | 11h 42m |
| November | 6:56 AM | 5:04 PM | 10h 09m |
| December | 7:35 AM | 4:36 PM | 9h 01m |
The slide is gentle in July, then it picks up speed. Which is the whole point: the light is never better than it is right now, and it goes faster than you think. So get up early. Stay out late. Take the long way home in the boat. You can sleep in September.
This is the month of awake.
