One Night in a Nordic-Style Spa Hotel on Prince Edward Island

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

The rewards one usually finds at the end of a long hike tend to be humble. A Snickers bar you forgot about, in the bottom of your musky old daypack. The warm interior of your car, as unexpected rain pounds against the windshield. The always cathartic gas station coffee. But as a habitual backwoods rambler, I’ve dreamt of greater things. Specifically, a trailside spa with steaming thermal baths, botanical aromas, and an onsite garden with edible greens. This fall, I learned that on Prince Edward Island’s north coast, that dream is a decadent reality.

The shores of PEI, as the locals call the Canadian province, boast two unique features: The coastline is aglow with robust red soil that’s packed with iron-oxide and literally rusting, and you can travel the circumference of the island on foot, thanks to the Island Walk—a 435-mile hiking route that weaves through boreal forests, chirping wetlands, potato fields, and beaches. Scouted and launched in 2021 by local long-distance walking enthusiast Bryson Guptill and a strapping crew of volunteer trail planners, the Island Walk is delineated into 32 segments that connect PEI’s rustic scenery with the amenities of its villages. Meaning, you can set off on a day’s journey from a family-run B&B, fuel your hike with baked goods or fresh shellfish from a local seafood shack, and savor a pink dusk from a hammock or a hot tub at your next overnight stop along the route.

After decades of hiking in my native New England, up and down piles of soggy stones and roots that somehow qualify as "trails," I was ready for a kinder and gentler experience outdoors, so I eagerly planned a trip to hike a hefty piece of the Island Walk. Setting off from the town of Mount Stewart, I would spend two full days walking from the more exposed coast to the richly forested expanse known as New Zealand, spending each night at a different inn near the trail. (Each inn would shuttle my luggage to the next lodging destination, leaving me to hike with little more than a change of clothes and some snacks.) After a phone call with Bill Kendrick, a former PEI innkeeper who now helps Island Walkers figure out the nuts and bolts of their treks, I found what would be the North Star of my adventure: Mysa Nordic Spa & Resort. The 18-acre oasis of thermal pools and saunas, crafted to resemble a Scandinavian retreat with garden-to-table dining and recently renovated bayside cottages, looms over St. Peters Bay near the end of the trail’s twentieth section.

Monday

9 a.m.: After arriving in Mount Stewart at sundown and recharging at Bishop’s Rest—a former 19th-century clergy house, born again as a charming family-owned B&B—I begin my first day on the Island Walk in a long corridor of birch trees with yellowing leaves. The plan is to enjoy 17 sea-breezy miles of walking from this point to St. Peters Bay, where I’ll rest my feet and soothe my nerves at Mysa. Hopefully before sundown.

Hiking 17 miles in a single day might sound grueling, but the Island Walk is a curated patchwork of preexisting bike trails and little-used dirt roads: more like Spain’s Camino de Santiago than the Appalachian Trail. You’re walking on mostly level, rock-free ground, which makes distances feel less cumbersome. As I kick off my hike, noting the encroaching presence of boglands on both sides of the trail, I quickly realize that without worrying about trip hazards underfoot, I can savor and appreciate the subtler qualities of the natural environment around me. The creaking of arbors, or the rippling wake on a trailside pond, created by some unseen thing in the water.

11:30 a.m.: The trail slowly transitions from forest to grassier farmland—a long line of packed dirt slicing through the vast, near empty countryside, beyond the vanishing point—and the agricultural prominence of the island becomes front-of-mind. Spuds are the top crop for PEI farmers, with more than 2.5 billion pounds of potatoes grown and harvested annually. I’ve just missed the peak of harvest season and the fields around me are barren and recuperating for the year ahead. As the salty wind carries some loose grass in my direction, I start to wonder how it would feel to apply my newly recalibrated senses to something crafted from the local produce.

Upon reaching the town of Morell, I detour off-trail and walk down a busier road to a joint called The Seafood Shack. It’s tacked onto an Irving station, with little more than an overhead menu posted above the counter and a couple of decorative gourds. But there’s nothing humble about the heft and richness of the chive-laden lobster roll that I order, or the golden brown french fries that accompany it. Every bite is ecstasy, and it’s all the better enjoyed from an Adirondack chair alongside the parking lot, as a tow truck driver hauling a derelict SUV pulls in and hits the pump. These natural and built elements colliding—the bucolic trail, the succulent lunch, the bustling gas station—adds an extra layer of sweetness to the experience.

3 p.m.: The question that intrigues me most about Mysa Nordic Spa & Resort—powering my tired feet as the trail emerges from the wetlands to the cerulean vast of St. Peters Bay—is how it will feel to step into a steaming thermal pool after being so immersed in the ecology of PEI for the day. I’m surprised by how efficiently I’ve traveled this distance. (A mid-trail craft IPA, procured from the gas station, surely helped.) When I finally reach the town of St. Peters, I find that most of the shops have closed down for the fall. So I decide it’s time to say goodbye to the trail, wander up the road, and begin the rejuvenation process.

The thick, dark green pine conifers that flank the driveway to Mysa are my first indication that I’m entering another world, cultivated within the PEI dreamscape. On a sun-splashed hillside where the drive ends, a handsome wooden lodge and rows of white cottages overlook the bay. I enter the former in my grubby hiking clothes and am greeted by a receptionist seated before a wall of wooden shelves containing white bathrobes, which the young, bespectacled receptionist warmly tells me I can wear to the spa pools and then to dinner immediately afterward.

4 p.m.: The thermal spa at Mysa is hidden from view by wooden walls, with an on-site firepit that imbues the spa environment with a pleasant smoky aroma. As I descend stone stairs to the pools, overwhelmed by the choices before me, I decide to do things by the spa’s suggested playbook. First, 10 to 15 minutes in one of the hot pools, which I happily wade into. I sit beneath a piping hot waterfall and gaze out toward the bay and its fishing boats. The scene evokes its own images of Scandinavia, and the spa’s wood chip gasification heating system ensures that warming of those pools doesn’t desecrate the area with black carbon emissions.

Next, it’s time for a 10- to 15-second cold plunge in the neighboring pool. For such a beautiful day, the spa is oddly empty, which is good because the icy water elicits a loud, four-syllable expletive from me: a word you don't usually hear exclaimed in a calming spa environment. I explode from the pool, snatch my robe, and retreat to the heated "relaxation room," an ornate wooden shelter with yet another bay view and soft surfaces on which to lounge and enjoy the final step of the process—20 minutes of resting. This is just one approach to the Mysa experience. I could also try a self-guided meditation session on the spa mezzanine, plump for a massage, or purify my pores in the eucalyptus-scented steam room. The third option is especially appealing after a long day in hiking boots and increasingly grubby clothes.

7 p.m.: I’m not a napper, but to my surprise, I can’t help but doze off in my cottage. The toasty fireplace, cream-white walls, and four-poster bed somehow lull me into another place. So I’m a little loopy as I don my robe again and trek back up the hillside to the soft-lit lodge dining room. The seasonal menu is replete with offerings from the onsite greenhouse, fruit trees, and herb pots—not to mention, the island’s farms and fish market. Given the chilly weather and the day’s exploits, this is a beef tenderloin kind of night. It arrives with velvety ropes of rosemary jus, garlicky kale and potatoes, and roast golden beets.

8 p.m.: Somehow, I’m back in the thermal pool again, well after dusk. It’s glowing blue thanks to underwater lights. Just as the Island Walk’s woods and waters were the backbone of my day, these piping hot baths have become a similar foundation. In both places, there’s a stillness.

It’s late. Tomorrow I’ll continue with the second half of my Island Walk journey, reaching the woods of New Zealand before sundown. Hopefully. For now, my football field of a bed awaits. But there’s no need to rush. I’ll get there. Eventually.

Top photo courtesy Mysa Nordic Spa & Resort

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