I have just spent the better part of 2 weeks at a writer’s colony, first time ever. It was bliss. Fairly productive bliss, at that. The colony (supported by the Saskatchewan Writer’s Guild) is at a Baptist camp on the shores of Christopher Lake, about 2.5 h on the bus (total – it took me 4 hours to get there) north of Saskatoon, and a whole climactic zone away. We discovered this when in my lone foray into civilization (internet hookup at Prince Albert public library) I read a weather forecast that predicted 27 C for Saskatoon on a day that turned out to be one of our wettest if not our coldest. The lake is in camp and cottage country, surrounded by mid-boreal forest (poplar, spruce). The sky is immense, and very changeable. We had all 4 seasons, with the exception of snow, but I think the quarter inch of hail that thundered down (tin roofs) in all of 10 minutes and left all surfaces coated with white might be a adequate substitute. A couple of warm days, followed by cool and rainy, cool and misty and overcast, cool and misty and clearing, windy, changeable, with thunderstorm, more rain, and finally, on my last day, frost and autumnal mist. At 8 am that last morning I was standing on the side of a lake watching the mist burn off and 5 Canada geese swim away across the glassy water. At 5 pm I was coming into Victoria after a flight that went from Saskatoon to Calgary, Calgary to Kelowna, Kelowna to Calgary, with the same recitation in English and French at each stop and a screaming infant from Kelowna on. The only thing that stopped me climbing on the plane to go back was the thought of climbing on the plane to go back.

The camp consists of a lodge, which had rooms downstairs and lounge and dining room upstairs, a retreat, which was someone’s too-small country house, so they gifted it to the retreat (sliding it down the frozen lake to do so), and assorted cabins distinguished by years of camp-kid grime and a density of bunk beds that was surreal and unnerving. I was originally assigned one of those (the possibility of a cabin of my own had been one of the things that attracted me, as well as going somewhere I hadn’t gone before, and putting distance between me and all the clutter and distractions of home) and backed out as soon as I saw it, moving into the retreat. The cabin also had no plumbing and I would almost certainly have had a close encounter of the ursine kind on my way to the loos early one morning. We had a bear and cub very much in evidence, never seen, but leaving tracks, droppings, and most notably, the carcass of a mature deer by our docks, thought to have been pulled down as it climbed out from swimming across the lake. Much discussion about whether the fox coming to feed was a black fox or a silver fox, and whether the two were one and the same. There was also a cougar somewhere in the woods, and the camp super reassuringly relayed to us the information from the park ranger who came to collect the carcass that when we were out on the trails around the camp, we were probably being watched. People became less enthusiastic about tramping the trails as time went on.

There was nothing nasty in the lake, although it was bitterly cold after a cool, wet winter, and only the hardy went swimming – and then compared their hypothermic symptoms thereafter. I ventured in 3 times, for about 5 minutes apiece (after at least that long actually getting to the point of immersion – the cold bypassed the skin and went straight to the muscles, creating a deep, visceral cramp). The camp had several aluminium canoes, 17 footers, and a bit of a handful for an inexperienced canoeist, as I discovered fairly early on when I found myself in danger of being marooned on the far side of the lake (probably 1000 yards or so, really) because I couldn’t keep the canoe turned into the wind to paddle back. I eventually solved that problem by towing it through the shallows to the closest point, climbing into the front, and just paddling doggedly across the lake, alternating counts of strokes and curses; I hope the boat was not a Baptist. A few times I went out with other people, much easier. One of the colonists had also brought with her a very nice wooden kayak, made by her husband. She was not a morning person, was never seen before 10 am, so she let me take it out in the mornings. So one morning I found myself sitting on a lake as the morning mist cleared, listening to the echo of the loon’s cry mapping out the lake around me.

Work, oh yes, work. We had silent working hours from 9 am to 5 pm (with the exception of one hour for lunch) during which we were not only permitted but required to ignore each others’ existence. Nothing better for a writer, for whom the threat of interruption can be crippling. Breaking deep concentration on a scene can be nearly painful. On the first day various people deployed themselves to various sunny spots with notebooks, but as the weather deteriorated, we tended to keep to our rooms. Meals were laid on, communal, in the lodge, breakfast at 8 am, lunch at 12, dinner at 6 pm; corn, chicken and macaroons (oh those macaroons) to die for. We ate at 2 large round tables, those of us who showed up for meals. Some people were seldom seen outside happy hour (5 pm, in the one cabin we were allowed to have alcohol in). Others, like myself, were never seen at happy hour. I think there were only 2 people from outside Saskatchewan, and many of the colonists had been coming to these retreats for years. I had no sense of having to break into a closed circle; I just found myself on the periphery of a large, loose network of people who house-sat for each other, minded each other’s pets and knew each other’s stories from colony to colony; given time, I too will work myself into the collective lore! I am already plotting to go back next year. Writers predominated. First week there was a painter and a photographer, and second week, 2 more painters arrived. The visual artists occupied a huge fabric walled studio that looked like the full-grown offspring of a tent and a quonset hut, being was large enough to have a garage-sized roll-up door in the end. Sides and wall were translucent and we were given to understand the light on fine days was like daylight – but no one was allowed in there except on the artists’ say so. We had no internet, no phone, there was a TV in the retreat house but it was never turned on, and while the occasional newspaper floated through, it was usually 2 days old and local. Evenings, when not writing, those of us in the retreat worked on a communal jigsaw puzzle. We had done three and a half by the time I had to leave, 2 days early, to get back to do a presentation at work. Didn’t finish the book; did start making progress again, which I am going to have to fight to maintain, since I spent most of this evening summarizing presentations from a conference I attended just before going to the colony.