Engage your senses in the Great Bear Rainforest

To escape - the act of breaking free.

There are many ways in which we find escape. One personal favourite is to travel to distant places, eat exotic dishes and meet new people. Others prefer to free themselves of the hustle and bustle and sink into a slower rhythm, taking time to catch their breath. Here at Farewell Harbour, we have cultivated an equal mix of these styles in our new Escape Package. We created an experience that allows you the chance to stop, rest and enjoy the power of place our lodge has to offer but still maintain the option of exploring a little further afield if you wish. The art of doing nothing is explained perfectly by The New York Times as taking “conscious considered time to do activities like gazing out of a window”. This is not something that we find the time to do by ourselves, it is not promoted by our modern day culture where “busy is best”.

We all need to slow down sometimes, not just to help heal our physical exhaustion but also our mental stresses. It has been scientifically proven that spending time around water has a direct correlation with regulating the nervous system through the senses, in turn making us feel calmer. Wallace J Nichols calls this correlation “Blue Mind” and our location, with its endless vistas of Blackfish Sound and the Broughton Archipelago, encompasses this completely. So sit back, relax and let us take you on a journey of Farewell Harbour through the different senses...

Touch

What are you feeling at the moment? Is it the soft material of your clothing? A breeze from a window you forgot you had left open? Our skin is the largest organ on our bodies and we put it through a lot. Did you know that just the feeling of water on your skin has an immediate impact on lowering your stress levels and mood (so go take that bath, you deserve it). Here in the Great Bear Rainforest, we spend our days out in the salty ocean breeze and summer sunshine, walking through cool forests or trekking mountain tops. The chance to take a leisurely morning stroll through our 30 acre private forest becomes a time to stop and take note of the feeling of the soft moss underfoot and ancient bark you brush by. Or sit on our deck overlooking the ocean and notice the salty breeze or warm sun on your skin. When we take note of what we are feeling, we realize just how soft and comforting the world can really be.

Sight

Obviously you are looking at this blog at the moment but how do your eyes feel? Have you been looking at screens all day? Do they feel tired and itchy? Our eyes are bombarded with information all day every day but did you know that the colours we look at and even the distance we focus on has an effect of how we feel? There is a rule to help with this in your day to day called the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes spend 20 seconds (or more) and walk 20 feet away to either look out of a window, get a glass of water or have a chat. There are also colours that have been proven to slow the heart rate, calm our nervous system and lower stress hormones. The Broughton Archipelago is the perfect tonic for this with a natural palette of soft blues, forest greens and slate greys...even staring off into the distance is good for you!

Smell

What can you smell at the moment? Take a moment to really notice and see how it makes you feel? Does it invoke a memory of something or make you feel anything? Our sense of smell is so closely linked with memory, more so than any other of our senses that it can bring up memories from decades ago in an instant. Where does the smell of the ocean take you? Or a wood fire on a chilly evening? These are just some of the smells that will become ingrained in your memory of Farewell Harbour Lodge and perhaps even the smell of a whale's breath, that isn’t something you’ll forget quickly!

Taste

When was the last time you tasted the air? Or foraged when you were out for a walk? Taste is something that gets put to the back of our minds on a daily basis. We quickly eat a packaged sandwich because we have back to back meetings or we’re so exhausted by the time we get home we refuse to spend more than 20 minutes on dinner. Let us take some of that responsibility away from you. Our food is something guests leave the lodge not only complimenting but asking our chef for recipes in order to recreate their favourites at home (we managed to get the scone recipe, you're welcome). Spend your days tasting salty sedge, fresh salmon berries and even trying spruce sap before heading home to the delights of a three course supper overlooking the sunset.

Sound

What can you hear right now? Traffic? People talking? The TV? Our senses are bombarded all day in our regular working lives, especially our hearing. It begins with the morning alarm and doesn’t really end until we go back to sleep. The irony is that all of this stimulation has actually meant that we listen less! When was the last time you enjoyed the sound of silence without turning on the radio or listening to a podcast. Our minds are most creative when we actually stop the stimuli and allow ourselves to approach “boredom”. The sounds of nature help with this, allowing our minds to slow down and actually hear the world around us. The remoteness of Farewell Harbour means our guests are filling their days instead with the sounds of chirruping eagles and the occasional sea lion bark or Humpback whale blow heard from our deck.