This is one of those things that words don’t begin to describe.
Actually, I realize most experiences are hard to convey through words and pictures, which is why this writing and photography thing is a continuous game of never-quite-nailing-it-but-always-continuing-to-try.
I suppose most things in life are like that. Why else would my husband keep chasing little dimpled-white balls with those big Pings, without that continuous loop of thinking that says…”This time. For sure, this time I’ll get it.”
That being said, I want to try. First, the disclaimer. It needs to be said that I’m a spa junkie. I feel better the minute the doors open in any spa or massage place or anything that remotely feels relaxing. So am I the perfect ‘control’ for a spa experiment? Probably not.
However, this endorsement is different because most of the time, in fact 99.9% of the time, I love spas because of the hands-on massage.
At Whistler’s Spa Scandinave, there are massages available, but they are not the focus.
The focus is the healing effects of hydrotherapy. Essentially, you heat the body up in either the wonderfully smelling wood-burning sauna or the Eucalptus steam room. Then you plunge that same body into the cold pools, and then – and this is they key point – you allow the body to regulate itself by lying in either the solarium, the hammocks or on the chaise lounges by the outdoor fireplace. Then repeat the procedure. And again. And then this time with feeling.
Finns apparently view this procedure, not as an indulgent luxury, but as a necessity for mental and physical relaxation and the myriad of benefits that come from that kind of relaxed state.
I think I want to be a Finn.
Suffuse is a good word. The sequences of hot, cold and integration create a fizzy body-buzz that suffuses my being with an internal champagne cocktail of super-oxygenated wellnesss. It is a sense of being very relaxed, but simultaneously very awake and full of vitality. I told you this would be hard to describe.
And then there’s the other very cool aspect. Food.
The food in the Spa cafe is catered by the BearFoot Bistro. For those of you who know the Whistler restaurant scene, you know that BearFoot is the foodie’s Valhalla. The smoothies are to die for. Why can’t mine taste like that?
The salads feel very Goldilocks…not too heavy, not too light, but just exactly right for the ongoing hydrotherapy. The miso soup has that healing comfort aspect, and when you’re all buffed up and ready to go home, I’d recommend the chocolate cake. It goes down pretty good with the freshly-pulled Americano. And remember, dark chocolate is good for us.
Suffice it to say that I was wondering when I could come back.
This is what I know. If I lived in Whistler I would have an annual pass to the Scandinave Spa. No phones, no laptops and very-much-encouraged silence. I bet I’d start to look a little bit Finnish.
