The most honest account
comes from the people here.

When my family first brought up the idea of a senior residence, I was not particularly open to it. I had lived in my house on Georgian Bay for thirty-four years. But a daughter of mine had read about the Weekend Retreat and convinced me to try it. I did not expect to stay. That was eighteen months ago. The trails in the morning, Sylvie's cooking, Robert's quiet enthusiasm for birds — it is a different kind of life, but it is a full one.

My father moved to muskokiqqs in the spring after my mother passed. We were worried about how he would adjust — he is a particular man, not someone who joins things easily. Within two months he had a standing canoe outing on Thursdays and a group he plays chess with on Sunday evenings. He sounds like himself again on the phone. That is something I did not know I was hoping for until it happened.

I booked the retreat partly out of curiosity and partly because my children had been gently suggesting it for a year. The meals were genuinely good — not what I expected from a residence setting. The naturalist walks were at a pace I could manage comfortably. The staff knew my name by dinner on the first night. I am not ready to commit to anything yet, but I understand now why people do. That is more than I expected to take away.

We brought fourteen people — some small family, some not so small — to muskokiqqs for a three-day reunion around my mother's 80th birthday. The liaison, Claire, had arranged everything ahead of time and was there throughout. My mother was the resident everyone knew. Watching her show her grandchildren the dock she fishes off in the mornings was worth the whole drive from Montréal. Everything was handled with such care.

I was a city person my whole career. The move to muskokiqqs was my wife's idea — she grew up near a lake and wanted that kind of quiet again. I was skeptical that it would suit me. The first winter was an adjustment. But Robert's evening talks about the forest have genuinely changed the way I look at the world outside the window. I did not anticipate that, at seventy-eight, I would still find myself surprised by things. It is a gift.

The communication from the team is something I did not expect to value as much as I do. When anything changes — programming, scheduling, even small things — someone reaches out directly. It is not automated. That matters. My mother is not particularly forthcoming about how she is doing, so knowing that the team pays attention and tells us what they see has been genuinely reassuring.