The loons are back

The river’s loud again.

For months this property has held its breath - frozen, white, quiet in that long northern kinda way. And then, almost overnight, everything began to move again.

The water swelled. The birds returned. The Laurentian Hills softened at the edges.

Spring at Anupaya never really arrives politely. It bursts right in.

This year it brought us the highest water we've ever seen. For weeks we watched the river rise and rise - and there is a particular kind of humility in standing on land you love and being reminded, again, that you aren’t in control of any of it.

The cabins are safe. The beach is still here. The shoreline held. But it has been another season of letting go of plans and trusting that things would settle. And once again, they are.

In the meantime, the work has begun.

Cabins aired out. Beds remade. Windows wiped clean of winter.

The lodge is being readied.

Our seasonal team is back, learning the rhythm of the place, the slow specificity of how we do things here. The gardens are stretching awake. The first shoots are in.

The animals are out wandering again like they own the place. Cause they do.

Mornings are still cold enough for wool sweaters.

By noon you can sit barefoot on the sand. A few spring storms have rolled through, the kind that drum on the cabin roof and make staying inside feel like an event. We don't mind those days at all.

And the loons are back. A sure sign of spring.

Every year, their calls echo across the bay before anything else fully wakes up. Before the gardens are planted, before the cabins fill, before summer arrives in full.

There’s something about their presence that feels grounding - wild and familiar all at once.