Glamping can mean many things to many campers. To the privileged middle class, it might mean an RV or trailer outfitted with toilets and appliances. For the immodest millennial, it’s all about that #VanLife — maybe a 1970 GMC with the bubble windows and Murphy bed, repainted to look like Scooby-Doo’s Mystery Machine. And for the true, rugged Albertan, glamping might look like that guy shivering by the campfire, requesting an electric kettle for his Aeropress coffee.
That guy is me. I’m on the side of the spectrum that encompasses casual campers who love being in nature but are perpetually unprepared for it. Despite my family’s love of the Rockies and Bedouin bloodline, it seemed we were the only Northern Albertans who never even tried to camp. After every hike and campfire, we always retired to a three-star hotel. So my baseline for sleeping in the woods is a queen-sized mattress, electricity and some flat surface to organize my belongings. That’s changed slightly since my brother bought a trailer for his Lesser Slave Lake lot, but the four-hour drive rarely justifies a weekend getaway.
Last September, looking to treat ourselves to a quiet getaway, my girlfriend and I booked ourselves a geodesic dome just 45 minutes from downtown.
Geodomes owe their popularity to the environmental movement, but they owe their architecture to igloos. It just took hippies a really long time to embrace thousands of years of Inuit common sense — that a concave building with limited surface area is a more energy-efficient, weather-resistant and breathable shelter. And, as is the case with all things countercultural, it was Burning Man that brought it to the mainstream.
Geodomes are now in high demand on Airbnb’s glamping section (yes, such a thing exists now) and private campsites from Ma-Me-Mo Beach to Lac Ste. Anne. And lucky for me, one of the closest, Elk Island Retreat, is also one of the bougiest. This month, the company is adding Canada’s first Ood House Nordic sauna — a high-end, wood-fired unit with mirrored walls for a 360-view of nature — to its trail of yurts, trapper cabins, geodomes, moss-covered wedding altar, and adobe-rustic bar and event space. There are also a few uncanvassed tipis, harkening back to the origins of the family business.
Long before passing the reins to their sons, and before “glamping” was even a word, Rick and Patricia Hanneman were doing it in a very ‘90s way: wood-floored tipis furnished with fireplaces. Hiring Indigenous cultural programmers, their visitors back then learned about Cree legends and spirituality, and started every morning with bannock. It gradually turned into a simpler RV site until their sons took the reins about five years ago and fully embraced glamping.
At $250 per night, we expected not just comfort but luxury. We pulled up to a steel-framed, white-canvassed and chimneyed globe with a front deck and the name “Spruce Hollow” on the hinged door. We were immediately struck by the interior design. Second-generation co-owners Nate and Shweta Hanneman retrofitted it with rustic furniture, Bohemian touches and downtown condo comforts — including air conditioning, an electric fireplace, and a vintage-style mini-fridge. There was even a Nespresso machine and electric kettle, as if just for me. The only thing stopping it short of a hotel room was no TV, but we brought a projector to watch movies on the canvas ceiling while we snuggled in bed with tea and wine.
I loved the option of taking my book to the campfire or a reading nook with a panoramic forest view, taking a jog on the trails while my girlfriend stretched on a yoga mat in the sunlight. We could take our morning coffee to the pond, watching for muskrats and beavers, or keep it piping hot while we relaxed with breakfast and board games.
We opted out of the prepared charcuterie platter and unfortunately couldn’t book a day that offered in-room couples massages. Since adding the first of four geodomes and rebranding for the bougie millennial, Elk Island Retreat has started taking bookings earlier and earlier to keep up with the demand (the company will open its 2025 season for bookings in December). Summer sells out fast, but even the shoulder seasons are busy. There are mostly weekday openings left until the season ends on Nov. 17.
Even the most experienced glamper might find mid-November too late in the year, but the outdoors felt very different roasting hot dogs on a Weber barbecue and making a midnight dash to the nicest outhouse I’ve ever seen. And besides, even on a warm September day, we barely wanted to be outside. Even though there’s a national park and designated dark sky preserve ten minutes away, the point of being in a geodome is to stay indoors — to bring nature to you, not yourself to nature.
