I was collected from the train station by Francis and we drove for about quarter of an hour along the highway before turning into the Smoothwater drive. The scenery here is dramatically different to further north. Gradually on my journey south the landscape changed from a seemingly endless flatness of pines to meandering frozen lakes coralled by rolling wooded hills. Deciduous and conifers all muddled up together and, in this season, all festooned in fluffy white snow. We stopped first at a two storey building, the upper floor of which was to be my home for the next short while. Three small bedrooms, a living area and a bathroom. Next stop was to meet Caryn at the main lodge. This is also their family home - quite an amazing place centred around a large room with a high pitched ceiling and enormous picture windows looking out onto the lake and a wooded island. There was also an accommodation block with several rooms ranging from dorms to double beds, a sauna, and the Gathering Hall - yet another opportunity for picture windows! There was to be a yoga retreat over the weekend and so guests began to arrive on the Friday. First came a couple of sisters who were snowshoeing out to spend a couple of nights in one of the cabins on the trail system. Then a group of four ladies who were coming for a girls weekend away. They planned to stay in the accommodation block, partake of Caryn's delicious meals and try to work off that calorific intake by skiing during the day. The yoga instructor arrived and was installed in one of the other bedrooms in the staff house. During the day she works for a bank and on top of that she teaches yoga in the evenings and does a few weekends away like this. She turned out to be a marvellous instructor. I've taken a few yoga classes before and, to be perfectly honest, never really thought of it as something I'd like to pursue. I joined in with the classes at Smoothwater purely because it would be foolish not to take advantage of such an opportunity and was very impressed by the excellence of her instruction. (http://carasutrayoga.com/) It was a small class as two of the participants had been deterred from driving by a Toronto snowstorm. A mother and daughter (actually there were really three generations in attendence as the daughter was 7 weeks pregnant), both teachers from North Bay, arrived just in time for the first yoga class on Friday afternoon. So over the weekend there were nine of us for breakfast and dinner. Caryn likes to offer additional activities so that first evening we all had what she calls "great, great grandmother facials". This involves using natural ingredients...just like those our forebears might have used. Caryn works with the seasons - in summer she might have used a fruit puree to dab onto the skin. This time we mixed a concoction of natural yoghurt, honey, almond oil and apple cider vinegar. This we dabbed onto our faces using cotton wool. Then wiped our skin clean with a flannel dipped in balsalm infused hot water. Steaming over the same bowl of scented water was a great feeling. Then we dabbed honey onto our faces, patting and patting as it became sticker and sticker... the ladies called this a gomage (I have undoubtedly spelt that wrong!) Finally, we washed this off and wiped our faces with a cool slice of cucumber peel. My skin did feel rather good afterwards. What a contrast in experiences: one day I'm tree cutting and sled hauling with the Cree menfolk, almost the next I am in an exclusively female environment doing yoga and having facials! Other activities Caryn offered over the weekend included a cross country ski lesson, breadmaking (I had no idea one could cut up pine needles and make pine scented bread!) and watercolour painting. It's this range of activities and interests that makes Smoothwater special I think. Caryn is an artist, a self taught chef, a wonderfully creative person and she manages to combine and communicate her enthusiasm for all these different things to her guests. She cooks the way she paints, using colour and flavour in vibrant and exciting combinations just as an artist mixes and contrasts pigments on a canvas. In addition to helping around the lodge and participating in yoga classes and all the other activities I found a bit of time to explore a few of the trails. During the winter Caryn and Francis keep these groomed for skiers and I had lots of fun borrowing skis and heading off by myself or with Cara, the yoga instructor. The trails twist their way through narrow wooded tunnels, past expanses of frozen lake, on the edge of small patches of open flowing streams. Snow softly fell for much of my time there and so the trees were draped in white flakes that had settled lightly on their dark branches. It is a very beautiful place. Must be quite different in the summer time though when the lodge is busy with canoe trippers!
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