Winter wonderland

A too-good-to-be-true, utterly indulgent, weekend spent among the trees, traversing frozen lakes, scaling hills, and cozying up by the fire; bellies full of cheese fondue, baguette, chocolate fondue, pancakes, fresh fruit, and more than a little bit of wine.

Back in November, Mark and I booked this cottage near(ish) Tremblant for 2 nights, knowing it would be nice to have a mid-winter getaway to look forward to, although not the typically southern location of most mid-winter escapes. This getaway was not to getaway from winter, but to fully immerse in all the wonderful things about winter! We had initially been looking for a little one-room cabin, but couldn't find any that weren't tied to a larger resort that required the purchase of a meal plan. But it was lovely, and the experience was great (having never rented a cottage before).

We followed the map in the Guest Binder to the nice walking trail across the lake. Although instead of taking our boat across the lake as directed, we just walked on the (frozen) water. The trail was lovely and secluded and we didn't come across any other people on the trail. Just lots of animal tracks. We went venturing off the snowshoe path to make fresh tracks in the soft snow and explore the lure of higher ground, and were rewarded with a sighting of two woodpeckers working away, and a nice view of the forest. In one direction the stand of snow-spotted trees were so strikingly vertical and evenly parallel that only the varying tones of clay-grey hinted at their distance. It's hard to describe how lovely and deceptive the overall speckled pattern was that they created.

Giggling like a child, uncontrollably and unabashedly, having the first skate of the season on the little ice track we made on the solid, frozen lake. We spent an hour shoveling with the 'emergency car shovel,' and the ridiculously heavy, steel-reinforced shovel we found by the door of the cottage. The ice underneath the snow was smooth and perfect, and the snow, although deep, was light and relatively easy to clear.

It seemed to snow the entire time, varying between big, fluffy flakes floating lazily down to a fine silver dust that seemed to remain suspended in air and sparkled like diamonds in the filtered haze. Marveling at the unbelievable fineness and perfection of a tiny, symmetrical snowflake. How can you not stop and stare?

Reveling and delighting at the subtle sounds, and hues in infinite variations of white and blue and grey that only make those little spots of colour radiate: the crimson rust of curled bark, the beach-sand coloured leaves that cling steadfastly, fluttering in the breeze like faint applause, the delicate honey core of a sapling exposed from a creature's nibbling, or the pewter sheen of a silver birch, standing sturdy and silent. 

The small moments of understated beauty
that only seem to happen when I’m unencumbered by glass windows,
life all around me feels magnified in direct proportion
to the slowness with which I move through it.
—Alex Blagg