Salt Spring is a bucolic, stress-busting getaway destination where the everyday tensions of life tend to melt away the instant one steps foot on the island. To deepen the rest and relaxation, many visitors take advantage of spas, wellness centres, yoga studios and individual practitioners of the healing and metaphysical arts.
Spas
For crème de la crème service, the spa at the Hastings House Country House Hotel offers body wraps, facials, manicures and traditional body and foot massages in its lovely, cedar-clad barn. All-natural essential oils are used in treatments at the Solace Organic Spa (111 Saltair Lane off Stewart Road). Another option: the Skin Sensations Day Spa in Grace Point Square in downtown Ganges.
Soaking and Floating
Ayurvedic therapies based on alternative medicine practiced for millennia in southeast Asia are a specialty at the Salt Springs Spa Resort. Steps from the ocean on the northeast coast near Fernwood, the resort sits atop one of the mineral springs that gave the island its name. Supersized hydro-jet tubs in private chalets allow overnight guests to soak to their heart's content in buoyant waters that are richer in mineral content than Harrison Hot Springs in BC and such historic English spa towns as Royal Leamington and Cheltenham. Drop-in visitors booking spa treatments can also relax in one of these "ultra-massage" tubs.
Yoga Classes and Retreats
Drop-in classes and weekend yoga retreats are routinely scheduled at the Salt Spring Centre, a definitively peaceful rural refuge on Blackburn Road (off the Fulford-Ganges Road in mid-island). Also here is the Chikitsa Shala Wellness Centre, where the menu includes reiki sessions, herbal steambaths and warm-oil massages. The Ganges Yoga Studio, meanwhile, offers daily opportunities to stretch and breathe deep. Find it on the second-floor of the Grace Point Square complex downtown.
Meditation
Periodic residential meditation retreats are offered by the Salt Spring Vipassanna Community. Weekend and longer silent retreats in a tradition brought to North America by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, among others, are held at Stowel Lake Farm (190 Reynolds Road). This organic farm in the island's southend also holds yoga classes in a radiant, architect-designed space known as The Gatehouse.
Spiritual Exploration
Salt Spring has long had a magnetic appeal to seekers, New Age devotees, holistic healers and others practiced in the metaphysical arts. Psychics, spirit guides, tea leaf readers and tarot card masters reside on the island. The giftshop Wildflower Moon (148 Fulford-Ganges Road) in town is a good starting point in sourcing the names and locations of Salt Spring healers.