We discovered the place,
Arowhon Pines Lodge, by chance, a month or so ago when looking for a place to lunch, crossing the
Algonquin Park, coming from Pembroke on our way back to Toronto. We were enchanted by the site and booked a room then to come back for the (Canadian)
Thanksgiving week-end. It’s only when we mentioned the place to a few people in Toronto that we realized it was very well-known (“Everybody in Toronto knows the place” to quote Cynthia!)
It’s been written up several times in many newspapers and magazines over the years (clippings of some of which are featured on the walls of the dining hall – the NYT, the G&M, Saturday Night – August 1976 edition!) The lodge and its picturesque dining hall were built in the late 1930s (I heard 1940) to accommodate parents of campers who were coming to Arowhon Camp, a co-ed facility that legendary (we found out)
Lilian Kates had started a few years before (1932) in the Park, on Teepee Lake, nearby. She ran the lodge until her son Eugene took it over in the early 70s; he had then to fight the Ontario Government to keep this privately, family-run hotel in the Park (the Government had apparently decided to phase out leases, so that no privately-owned facility would remain as such in the Algonquin Park – there were apparently several privately-owned lodges, among which the Arowhon Pines). He succeeded, on the account it would appear that it had been profitable since the beginning, in spite of the fact that he had no license (and still does not) to sell liquors! I think it is a great feature of the place, as you can bring the wine you want to dinner, at no extra cost!
“Arowhon”… I thought initially an Indian word, but no; Lilian would have christened the place based on a contraption of “Erewhon” – the title of a Samuel Butler’s famous novel (published in 1872) about some kind of utopian place, and itself an anagram for “nowhere” – and “arrows” (because of Indians one can presume!)
The dining hall itself is quite an accomplishment. The2-brothers team that built it in the late 30s managed to get the lumber out of the surrounding woods, pine trees – there was lots around – and operated without the support of any electrically-powered devices –there were no roads either leading to the lodge then. They installed a huge metal chimney in the center of the hall to accommodate the large fireplace that still adorns the hall today. This is where we had all our meals while here – breakfast, lunch and dinner, at fixed times – you pick your table (first-come, first-served) some of which distributed along the windows of the hexagonal-designed place, giving on the lake. Excellent food, your own wine, and an array of desserts spread out on a central table…
These are the last few days the lodge is open this year; it then closes for the winter – it operates we found out for 18 weeks only during the year. It will re-open I presume in late-May next year. We feel privileged to be here at this time, enjoying a superb weather – sunny and comfortably warm – amongst a forest that is “fired up” with multicolored trees!
Spent a splendid day as it should be, in this wonderful nature: after breakfast (and a stimulating conversation with this “7th generation Pennsylvanian, German-descent Canadian” older gentleman, Maynard Snyder if I recall correctly, from Waterloo, who now lives in a plush retirement home in San Francisco!), we went rowing down a canoe from
Little Joe Lake, to
Joe Lake, and then, after a little portage – easy, no more than 300 meters or so on a gentled sloppy wide trail – to
Canoe Lake where mythical Canadian artist, member or precursor of
the Group of Seven Tom Thomson would have drawn, in mysterious circumstances we are told (accident, suicide, murder?), almost a hundred years ago (in 1917 actually). He came periodically to the park starting in 1912, and immortalized this part of the world in his various paintings – that lonely giant black tree against the lake-and-mountain scenery so familiar to this place! – (the best collection of which I can remember is at the
McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, a place not very far north of Toronto).
3 hours and a half of rowing opened up a healthy appetite for lunch – vegetable broth and salmon, not overcooked, and Trius Brut from Niagara-0n-the-lake Hildegard winery! Time then for a healthy digestive walk along one of the trails that start at the lodge – went for the “yellow” trail (it could have been named after the yellow that prevails in the tree color at this time of the year!) that goes deep in the forest behind and around Little Joe – again enthralled that we are by the colors of nature that a mixture of evergreens and leafy trees creates – every possible shades of green, yellow, brown, red, orange, etc…, shinning in that bright, warm sun…
Too warm and tempting to resist any longer a dip in the water! Went in for a few minutes – twice actually – in 59 Farenheight degrees water (not as daring as this French woman that went in after me and swam to the floating platform, a good 200 meters away from the deck!) Cynthia is reminded of this soap commercial on TV where the virtues of cold water are celebrated by a woman clamoring that “after all, we are Canadians”, just as her husband goes in, shivering very loudly! She also believed that the older white-hair woman that was on the deck and checked my hand to gage how cold I was having gone in, is Helen, the wife of now deceased Eugene, son of Lilian Kates – which makes her the owner of the place now, I guess! (This was actually corroborated the day after!)
A bit of a rest, late afternoon, before going for an early dinner (the hours are indeed early: 6:30 to 8pm) on cooked ham and venison (Ontario deer – we are told that deer are now domesticated around here!) and a wonderful bottle of Spanish (Ribera del Duero) 1996 Balbas. Followed by a long walk in the moon-lit night, enjoying (me!) a cigarillo… a full, so ever enjoyable day!
We will be back – booked before we left for Labor Day week-end next year…
Arowhon Pines, October 7, 2011
