How six celebrated Canadians are planning to unwind this summer

How I plan to unwind this summer:

This summer, I’m staying home. It’s been a while since I’ve seen my peonies bloom and I don’t want to miss it this year. When my husband Michael and I moved to the countryside years ago, I had time on my hands and I got interested in gardening. For me, gardening is so restorative. When I’m out there, my mind goes blank and all I think about is the plants, what belongs here, where I should move that. My life can be very complicated but my desires are very simple. I like nothing better than to sit in a lounge chair in my garden with a coffee, read and toss the ball to my two Labrador retrievers. I also recently bought a building in Knowlton, Que., where I live. A bookstore called Brome Lake Books (the inspiration for Myrna’s bookshop in the Inspector Gamache novels) is on the first floor. This summer, we’re opening a cozy café underneath the store called La Joie de Lire, based on the fictional Olivier’s Bistro. It has two big fireplaces, easy chairs and all the pastries I talk about in my books. I plan to spend lots of time there, too, with a café au lait or cappuccino, talking to friends and customers and eating the profits.

Where I’m happiest:

Michael used to call me a “horizontalist.” I’m happiest in three places: a bubble bath, a massage table and in bed. I go to bed early and my bedroom has big windows that look out into the forest. At nighttime, I like nothing more than to have my dogs beside me, knowing that all the people I love most in the world are healthy and safe. I try my best to identify and truly appreciate those moments.

Best summer memory:

When I was growing up, we had a cottage in the Laurentians, on Lac Manitou. My brothers and I and all our friends would run down the big dock and leap off the end into the fresh water. We felt like the Peanuts gang, where parents were only there to hand us egg salad or peanut butter sandwiches. It was joyous!

How I plan to unwind this summer:

I’ve always been interested in this idea of letting farm fields lie fallow – not planting something so that next year, the plants grow back stronger. I talk about the importance of work-life balance, but I’m bad at it. This summer, I’m practising stopping and trying to lie fallow. For me, that means heading to Grey County in Southwestern Ontario, where I grew up and where my parents still live. We’re fortunate to have a little place up that way. We call it a farm, but it’s an old stone farmhouse with a bit of land and a barn. The area is just big open spaces and farmland as far as you can see. When I’m there, I turn everything down several notches. I read and garden. I listen to birdsong and run on the gravel roads. To me, silence is a precious commodity. My job is talking, interviewing and always being “on” – this is where I go to luxuriate in silence, to soak up the space, the quiet and the night stars.

Where I’m happiest:

For better or worse, I’m hard-wired to be up early. I get up at dawn and go for a run when the rest of the house is still asleep. It’s just me and my thoughts. I don’t listen to anything when I run, so I’m able to be present. The other place I’m truly happy is the south shore of Nova Scotia. We have a daughter studying there, and whenever we visit, my wife and I think this is where we will eventually end up. It feels inevitable somehow.

Best summer memory:

It was the summer before the pandemic, when we took a family road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was before the world felt like it was falling apart, and before the kids moved on to university. We had these crazy adventures and so much fun.

How I plan to unwind this summer:

My husband’s family has a place on Kootenay Lake, so we are spending two weeks at their beautiful old cabin. Our daughter Louella, or “Lou,” is obsessed with sand, so I’m sure we’ll be spending a lot of time at the beach – something my husband and I don’t love, but you have to do these things for the “littles” sometimes. We have these Tommy Bahama low-ride beach chairs we’ll plunk by the shore, alongside a cooler stocked with a couple ice-cold beers, and watch Lou play. We’ll swim out to the dock, maybe go for a paddle, and laugh at our golden retriever, Tony, living his best life, chasing squirrels and eating sticks. The first week it’s just our family and then we send the invite out to anyone who wants to join us. This year, I think both grandmas will come, which will be really fun. The cabin has always been this happy place, built to create lasting memories.

Where I’m happiest:

I grew up in Comox, B.C., and I’m happiest in the mountains. I’ve always felt really connected to them. I’m also big on family and every year we have Christmas in July. It’s my parents, my husband Justin’s mom, my siblings and sometimes my aunts, uncles and cousins. We all just hang out in the backyard, shoot the breeze and have really yummy meals. My mom’s homemade lasagna is pure joy in every bite.

Best summer memory:

My mom used to take me and my brothers to Miracle Beach on Vancouver Island. We’d rip around the beach to dig holes, find sand dollars and try to bury each other. Mom would sit on the sand, watching us under an umbrella. She’d always bring watermelon cut into cubes.

How I plan to unwind this summer:

I love summer in Winnipeg. Folks really embrace the freedom of good weather after our long winters. My husband and I go to outdoor festivals, some pop-up bars, take day trips to the beach, host backyard barbecues and spend our weekends at a cabin we rent on Falcon Lake. We will also make a trip out to Calgary to visit our friends who have toddlers. This probably isn’t anyone else’s idea of rest, but I’m also doing the adult summer dance program offered by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I have a group of friends and we’ve done it together for a few years, often treating ourselves to ice cream after class. I have taken ballet classes for most of my life: It’s such a difficult discipline, which means you can’t worry about anything else. Life falls to the wayside and it’s just the music, my brain and my body. I spend a lot of time bent over a cutting board, so to stand up straight and leap across a room to a big Beethoven symphony feels like I’m flying.

Where I’m happiest:

My favourite place is Salt Spring Island in B.C., it’s where I feel connected to my inner child. My parents took me to St. Mary Lake every summer and I also got married on the island. The markets are full of local food that tastes even more delicious when enjoyed outdoors. The hikes are scenic with arbutus trees – some complete with fairy doors – and winding ocean views, which are very therapeutic for me. There’s nothing better than standing on the bow of a B.C. ferry with wind and sea air hitting your face, or sitting on a sun-warmed rock with a book, a crossword and bottomless coffee.

Best summer memory:

My grandparents lived in Qualicum Beach, B.C. and I remember driving to the beach in a Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible with our hair tied up in silk scarves, vintage from my great grammy’s closet. We’d unpack a picnic basket of martini fixings and get fish ‘n’ chips wrapped in newspaper with lots of malt vinegar. It just felt so incredibly luxurious.

How I plan to unwind this summer:

Usually, my summer gets filled up for me by people who are better at relaxing than I am. But this year, I finally got out in front of it and managed to get tickets to see the band Oasis at Wembley Stadium at the end of July. My partner and I will have a few days in London before heading to Cornwall to stay at a place called the Pig at Harlyn Bay. It’s an old manor house turned into a boutique hotel. There’s a nostalgic quality to the way they developed the property. It feels like you’re not just going to a quiet place, but to a quieter time. Slow food, slow eating, the gentle roll of the landscape. On the flip side of that, my parents live in Brampton, Ont., and I always have a week reserved to spend time with my family. We don’t do a lot, just sit in the backyard, reading or chatting. Nobody knows you better than your parents – it’s a place I can go and let my guard down completely and just be myself.

Where I’m happiest:

Halifax, where I live, is literally my happy escape. And my home, which I designed myself in the north end of the city, is the cocoon I never knew I wanted or needed. I love it when my partner Jolene and my son Adrian and I are all together, just hanging out on the rooftop, doing nothing in particular, but in close proximity. I have lived half my life in Halifax and I love the pace, the people, the history and the grit of the city. We also spend a lot of time in the Annapolis Valley, where we have a cabin called White Rock. It’s a magical, peaceful place.

Best summer memory:

It was the last week of August in 2022, and Adrian and I were at Fenway Park watching the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox. Just sitting there together in the sunshine, hearing the crack of the bat, smelling the grass, eating concession food. It doesn’t get any better than that.

How I plan to unwind this summer:

My husband’s family has a place in Southampton, Ont., that they’ve owned since the seventies, right on the beach. We have three kids: a six-year-old and four-year-old twins. They spend their time catching frogs and tadpoles, swimming and making sandcastles with cousins from Vancouver. There is also a small tennis club that we ride our bikes to every day. My commitment to myself this summer is to sneak out for more lessons. The cottage is like a time capsule in the best possible way. Nothing has changed in 50 years. There is no TV. We barbecue, play board games and have dance parties on the beach with our kids.

Where I’m happiest:

Sitting by the shore on Lake Huron with my family and the people I love. I enjoy the peacefulness of it. I think that is what is so special about summer in Canada. It feels safe, easy and just so right.

Best summer memory:

As a child, I went to summer camp and have lots of great memories of canoe trips, being totally alone in nature and completely removed from everything. I remember thinking, even as a kid, how rare this is – and feeling so lucky.

As told to Gayle MacDonald.