NATURAL PLUNGE POND LAKE LIVING IN A NUTANA BACKYARD
At the height of summer, a waterside retreat is a fortunate place in which to find yourself. For the lucky few with lake properties, that still means meal planning, bag packing and a long drive before reaching your destination. But Marcia McKenzie can skip all those steps. When
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her workday is done, she can indulge in a calming, veritable oasis in her own backyard, thanks to a thoughtfully designed natural pond and a small boreal forest beyond. “I love coming home and just sitting out here,” says Marcia. “I’ll dangle my feet in, have a drink, go for a dip.”
The inspiration began indoors. As a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Marcia sought a quiet refuge for writing. The solution came in the form of an addition—a cozy cabin-style writing room on the back of the house. “I would always go away to
writing retreats at cabins up north, so I thought, instead of going up north, I could create a place where I could write.” From there, the question became, “How do we create a boreal forest backyard so we felt like we were at a cabin when we were in the backyard?” Saskatoon HOME SUMMER 2018