Nothing
settles my heart like an Algonquin lake. For me, sitting on the porch that wraps
around the dining hall at Arowhon Pines this past June,* drinking a morning
coffee while watching the mist rise off the lake came pretty close to paradise.
Hummingbirds
hovered at the feeders, their wings whirring with the effort of keeping them
stationary, while down at the far end of the lake, a minuscule smudge in the
shallows showed up in my binoculars as a bull moose munching on water lilies.
Best of all, though, I had a pen, a notebook, and time. Lots of time. I loved
it.
Decades
back, I was keen on canoe-tripping into the interior of Algonquin Park. But the
ground seems to have gotten harder and canoes heavier; after the last time I
took a trip that required carrying a
canoe from lake to lake and sleeping on the ground, I couldn’t stand up
straight for a week.
But having
a real bed was just the start. Then there was the food. Dinner on Friday
evening featured a choice of lobster in passion fruit; roasted chicken with
Arowhon stuffing and house cranberry sauce; roast loin of venison; or orange
and ginger glazed tofu. It was a tough choice, even though for us the lobster
was out (not remotely kosher, you know).
To
my family’s collective sighs of pity, I went for the tofu, but the flavours
were so sharp and complex that it stacked up well against both the venison and
the chicken.
If you wanted, you might avoid the hell of having to choose by ordering
a half portion of all four entrees. But for myself I was close to full just
from the buffet of appetizers (the salad strewn with edible flowers was my
favourite) and I wanted to leave at least some room for the buffet of desserts.
Among those, I voted for the homemade wild blueberry ice-cream as best of the
buffet, but the kids were passionate advocates for the maple mousse and the
butter tarts (winners of some award or other).
And
of course in between the appetizers and the main course, there was also the
mushroom soup with a truffle cream, which was simply the best soup I’ve ever
had. So I can’t recommend ordering the whole dinner menu – that was a strategy
I reserved for breakfast, where I asked for almost everything: half portions of smoked whitefish,
eggs, potatoes and toast, French toast, and cinnamon pancakes, plus juice and
coffee. Lots of wonderful coffee.
For
lunch on Friday, we all ordered fish and chips (delicious). Lunch on Saturday
was a buffet with far too many dishes to begin to describe, but I have to give
special mention to the outstanding bean and mushroom salad, the Scotch eggs,
the tomato basil soup, and the edible flowers everywhere.
But
what I loved most was how we could go from enjoying food that’s as good as it
gets, take one step outside and be at the edge of the wilderness, with
Little Joe Lake at our doorstep and a series of other lakes within an afternoon’s
paddle. We took three trips out on these lakes: once a guided tour on a small
pontoon boat; once all four of us in a pair of canoes; and once me and my son in
a pair of kayaks.
We
saw moose on every outing. More accurately, we hung out with moose. A mama and
her calf were happy to let us drift close enough that we could hear them munching
their water lilies; close enough to smell them. They paid no more attention to
us than to a loon that swam by.
| Brian vs William |
My
son and I had to go swimming, too, though it hadn’t been a warm spring, and even
with the sun high overhead, the air temperature didn’t rise above 220.
But, heck, we were at a wilderness lodge and a few other hearty people were
jumping off the dock, so we did, too.
Georgian
Bay has colder water. William promptly turned blue and his extremities
went numb, so I told him to get out while he could still climb the ladder. As
for me, well, that breakfast I’d had and the extra pounds I still posses provided
warm insulation.
We
also hit the games room for a family ping-pong tournament and to introduce the
kids to the wonders of a well-salted shuffleboard table. Possibly this was a
mistake. At a restaurant back in Toronto, William demonstrated to one of his
buddies how salt acts like ball bearings, erasing friction so that salt and
pepper shakers – and even dinner plates – glide and spin as effortlessly as pucks
on a shuffleboard table.
Perhaps,
though, we experienced the most marvelous wonder of the trip that night as we headed back
to our cabin. With the closest traffic eight kilometers down a back road
through the woods, the quiet was profound and the sky clear of reflected light.
In the west, an orb hung in the sky as bright as a spotlight.
In
books, I’ve read references to airline pilots mistaking Venus for an on-coming
aircraft but had never before understood how this was possible. Now I did. The
sky was so clear that Venus didn’t look like just another star; it was plainly a disc, a goddess shining in the heavens.
| Sunset over Little Joe Lake, by Emma Henry |
Note: I
took this trip in June 2015 to check out Arowhon as a site for holding writers'
retreats. It passed! The subsequent retreats have been great, too. Read reviews
and other pieces inspired by of the retreats offered so far here (and
scroll down).
Check out
details upcoming retreats, at Arowhon Pines and other locales here (and scroll down).
See my upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.