The family holiday, unplugged
Road rage parked at the resort gates. Cellphones turned off. Water blasters loaded. SHEREE-LEE OLSON finds her computer-dependent children actually have fun in the outdoors at a family resort in Ontario
Sheree-Lee Olson
Saturday, August 3, 2002
HONEY HARBOUR, ONT. -- We're still on the Ontario Northland bus when I realize how badly my kids need to get out of the city.
Mom, look, fields! my six-year-old yells. A hill!
My eight-year-old is less easily impressed. He still hasn't quite got over missing his computer time this morning. There are no computers where we're going, or if there are, I won't tell him. But he's brought plenty of reading materials: Hard Disk Management and Norton Systemworks, to name just two.
We're heading north for the weekend to the Delawana Inn, a century-old full-service resort on the shores of Georgian Bay, which has just been awarded a five-star-plus rating by the family travel Web site, Hotel Fun 4 Kids.
The Del, as everyone there insists on calling it, is the kind of retro place that features nightly entertainment in the Huron Room and stuffed, mounted animals in the lounge, but has lately teamed up with the nearby Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre to offer more ecological fare. It's all listed in minute detail in the information package we find in our room in the Lilacs, one of several rowhouse-style residences nestled under the jack pines.
Whatever you think of stuffed animals, they're a hit with city kids.
Is it alive? Will it bite? asks the six-year-old, contemplating a glassy-eyed lynx crouched in front of the social convener's desk in the main building.
No, not alive, I say slowly. Dead, actually.
This fails to convince him. Mom, I think the lynx is alive. But stuffed.
Holidays are about fantasy, after all. For two days, my husband and I get to pretend we can actually afford to be here and our kids get to pretend their parents actually know how to have fun.
Fun is job one at the Delawana. Don't forget to have fun! exhorts the activities board in the lounge. Did everyone have FUN today? the microphone-wielding social director booms during dinner.
And we are here to have fun. So when my six-year-old asks if he can have a third piece of cake after a meal consisting of half a hot dog, I say, Of course you can.
The fun continues relentlessly after dinner, when there is a choice of a family movie in the Iroquois Room, a wildlife lecture in the Beausoleil Room or comedy night in the Huron Room. All this choice is overwhelming, so we head back to the Lilacs and watch satellite TV.
The next morning, the children breakfast enthusiastically on Belgian waffles (Mom, this place has the best food!) before teaming up with Dad for the 11 a.m. Rockin' Mini Putt Tournament. They're thrilled to come in third out of five teams. The prize is the same for everyone _ vouchers for a banana boat ride. There are also banana boat tickets in the goody bags the kids were given at check-in. Mental note: Book banana boat ride.
We have a small window before our next outing, so I decide to break out the surprise gifts, two brand spanking new water blasters. Unfortunately, the six-year-old's immediately begins leaking from every seam. It's a design flaw, Mom, he says helpfully.
No, honey, I mutter under my breath. It's a piece of crap.
Luckily, we are just steps from Up North Outfitters, an emporium on the ground level of the main building that offers everything from fishing tackle to Groovy Girl dolls. In fact, it's more like rock level: There's a room-sized slice of Canadian Shield poking through the floor. My son finds a plastic bow and arrow set for the amazingly reasonable price of $3.79. Also amazingly, it works.
By now we are rushing to our next appointment, the trip to Royal Island. The site of the original Delawana fishing lodge, it now offers a network of nature trails through a serene, piney retreat just spitting distance from the resort complex.
Champlain landed here, I tell the boys _ you know, the famous French explorer? They've never heard of him. They're only marginally more interested when we find a section of shoreline that is hopping with baby frogs. I immediately regress to my own childhood and capture one to show the boys: Look! It's the size of my fingernail! They allow that it's cute, but what they'd really like to see is ruins. Something in the order of Stonehenge, say.
Distraction is provided by my eight-year-old, who is wielding his super soaker like some renegade cop (Who wants it?). Inevitably, he falls into the water while filling it up, which means for the rest of the walk we are treated to loud demands to get me off this island!
We can't, my husband points out. We have to wait for the boat.
The boat is slightly late, which turns out to be a lucky break for the six-year-old, who is watching a father fishing with his son from the end of the island dock. This is not the time to tell him what I think of blood sports.
Want to give it a try? the man asks, in the time-honoured way of men passing on manly traditions.
He hands my son a baited rod, which he holds over the water for about a nanosecond before hauling it up, yelling, I got one!
Sure enough, there's a teeny-weeny fish wriggling on the hook. A bass, says the man, expertly unhooking it and tossing it back in. We don't keep the little ones. You want to try again?
Another nanosecond, another fish. That's amazing, I say.
People are nice at the Delawana. Okay, the staff is paid to be, but these camp counsellors are so friendly I feel like I'm at the Gap. And adults who might never speak to each other in the city think nothing of offering a toy to another's screaming offspring. Maybe this is what resorts are really about, not just a chance for kids to experience tame nature, but also a place where road rage gets parked at the gate and people remember what it's like to say hello to strangers.
It occurs to me that I haven't heard a cellphone in 24 hours. And then I realize that my elder son hasn't said the C-word since we got off the bus.
The trick is to keep them busy _ but not too busy. This becomes apparent when I interrupt their snack to tell them they have a banana boat ride in 15 minutes. Mo-om, the eight-year-old wails. You're making us work too hard!
I can hear him complaining all the way to the dock. The banana boat, my husband later reports, is an inflated yellow thing with straps for hanging on. If you let go, you are pitched into the lake. Such is the power of peer pressure that when the eight-year-old is dumped into the lake, he actually gets back on and finishes the ride.
So far, he has had more outings in one day than he has had the whole first half of the summer. And he's still up for the afternoon pool party (although he does nap briefly in his chair at dinner). By the time we deliver him and his brother to the evening group babysitting (because parents need their time too, the brochure says), he is acting suspiciously like a good sport.
Once more we decide to skip the evening's main events. The boys are having a ridiculous amount of fun making themselves cups of tea in the lounge. We decide to borrow a VCR and a family movie (Matilda) on the theory that they'll fall asleep watching it instead of having pillow fights into the wee hours. Of course, no one ends up falling asleep but me.
Camp is exhausting, after all. And I realize that's where we've been for two days, at camp with our kids. In the morning before we leave, my eight-year-old will ask to go back to the island he couldn't wait to get off, and my six-year-old will repeat his fish story for the first of several hundred retellings. I feel sure it's destined to become a classic _ like the weekend we spent at the Delawana, under the Georgian Bay pines.
High-season rates at the Delawana Inn Resort are from $309 per adult for a two-night stay. There is a children's supplement of $10 to $60 a day; $90 for teenagers. During summer weekends, two children 13 and under stay free. Call (800) 627-3387, or visit www.delawana.com.
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