Treetop haven
Dream of offering an escape, wellness and ‘an authentic experience’ comes true in P.E.I.
MOUNT TRYON, P.E.I. — Remember your favourite duvet fort when you were a kid? Nestle it in a futuristic, framed geodesic dome set high in a forest to get a TreePod, the latest in woodsy-chic stays.
Inspired by a difficult life change and disillusioned with her job as a mining site electrician, Sheila Arsenault, 39, opened Treetop Haven in March.
Following the 2011death of her brother, Craig, a grieving Arsenault reflected on how the Ottawa computer programmer found joy in his work. She wanted the same. An adventurous world traveller who studied travel and tourism management, Arsenault grew up enjoying the P.E.I. woods. She knew her plan had to include the wild 20 hectares her family owned about 45 minutes from Charlottetown.
Arsenault wanted to build something more than glamping and different than a hotel. It had to offer an escape, wellness and “an authentic experience.” She looked into tree houses, but P.E.I. doesn’t have trees that are big enough. Maybe yurts or cottages?
Then she hit on geodesic domes, ordering five prefab TreePods from a Portland, Ore., company, setting each on a 3.5-metre-tall deck amid the trees.
“I’d sit in the driveway with my daughter and we’d use sidewalk chalk and draw the domes and try to figure out if the beds will fit in there,” Arsenault said with a laugh.
Named for local birds, the double-sided white pods are airy and surprisingly spacious, with puffy fabric interiors and vinyl exteriors hung on a metal frame.
Inside, birch-coloured wood floors and a floor-to-ceiling picture “window” in the open-plan kitchen/living room make it feel part of the forest.
Available with one or two bedrooms, they have comfy beds and a small bathroom with a tub and shower combo. (If you’re a privacy freak, the pine walls don’t reach to the ceiling.) Two are all-season. Visitors unplug as they unwind: there’s no TV or Wi-Fi.
A solar-powered fan keeps the domes cool and the wraparound deck has a hot tub, gas barbecue and Muskoka chairs for relaxing.
“I still can’t believe this has happened, that I got the funding and that I have built it,” Arsenault said as we walked along a spongy forest path that she named Craig’s Way for her brother.
“I wanted to wake up and be happy to go to work and be excited. And I thought this is it. Now I wake up and I can’t believe I’m in the woods. And it’s my job,” she said.
A warm and enthusiastic person, Arsenault has plenty of ideas for Treetop Haven, making it a wellness destination with packages including massage and yoga. I’m her guinea pig for her proposed forest experience package.
Our slow walk amid the birch, maple and fragrant cedars is part of that plan: we’re forest bathing.
The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku (“taking the forest atmosphere”) and practitioners say a leisurely stroll among the trees lowers stress and makes for a healthy mind and body.
It’s growing in popularity in North America, said Arsenault, who plans to take a course in forest bathing guiding.
“The air changes,” she explained. “If you take a deep breath, it’s cleaner and crisper.” She’s not sure how it works but breathing in phytoncides, the fragrant organic oils plants give off, seems to have a lot to do with making people feel much happier after they leave the forest.
Although I love to walk in the woods, I didn’t feel anything different than the usual contentment at being outdoors. But maybe it’s because we were busy talking and the mosquitoes were so thick. The following morning, I went out early and took my time, stopping to breathe deeply. It was a peaceful, calming experience.
Things got more exciting on the path when we met another element in the forest wellness package: Hulk the Harris’s hawk. The trained bird of prey is used for hunting or animal control, keeping fields and industrial areas clear of other birds and pests. He’s trained to follow, so he’s a lovely addition to our forest-bathing stroll.
With a jingling bell on Hulk’s talon to let owner and trainer Jamie Stride of Island Falconry Services know where he is in the trees, the raptor came swiftly to Stride’s leather gauntlet-covered arm when a morsel of chicken was held aloft. We felt the air on our faces from Hulk’s beating wings as he landed.
Stride offered me the glove, explaining how to bring the magnificent bird to land.
“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Stride asked as Hulk spread his one-metre wings and took off. “A hawk walk is going to give you a wonderful experience to be up close and personal with a bird of prey, something you won’t experience anywhere else (in a forest),” he said.
Later, massage therapist Setsuko Nagai-Eager arrived at the TreePod, using cedar and fir essential oils to heighten the forest experience for an aromatherapy treatment. Midway, it began to rain, the drops lightly drumming on the roof as I drifted into semisleep.
Japan-born Nagai-Eager said she enjoyed forest bathing when she lived in Tokyo and believes “120 per cent” that nature “is the greatest healer.”
The following day, yoga instructor Greg Weeks led a practise in my living room, the mosquitoes keeping us off the deck. “Look up at the trees,” he said quietly as we twisted. “Feel the energy.”
Weeks also did forest bathing during the 20 years he lived in Japan as a corporate trainer. It stimulates the same sympathetic nervous system as yoga, he explained. “You’re bathing your body in nature.” Linda Barnard was hosted by Tourism Prince Edward Island which did not review of approve this story.