Bayview Wildwood Resort, Muskoka
Toronto is blanketed in white this morning, but trust me: Sooner or later, the city will revert to its standard winter brownness. A 90-minute drive north, however, the Muskoka landscape surrounding Bayview Wildwood Resort (pictured) stays snowy all winter long, and is ideal for XC skiing, snowshoeing, skating, tobogganing…in short, all those activities you can’t do when Hogtown turns brown. Bayview Wildwood just launched a two-night “Resort to Fun Winter Weekends” package, which includes two lavish buffet breakfasts and two three-course dinners, resort amenities such as an indoor pool, hot tub, games room and squash courts, live entertainment on Saturday night, and all the equipment and facilities needed for the aforementioned diversions. The damage? As little as $552 (plus tax) for a family of four until Feb. 8, and again from Feb. 20 to March 8.
Scandinave Spa Montreal
The sublime hot-then-cold circuit of pools, saunas and steam rooms offered by the Scandinave chain of spas takes on a decidedly urban feel in Montreal's gorgeous Old Port district, where the indoor facility (pictured below) features bean bag chairs, mood lighting and plenty of glass and chrome. It’s all extremely relaxing — especially when paired with a massage — and until March 26 costs just $39 for the baths and $99 for the baths plus a massage on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Combine this with a midweek special from one of the spa’s 21 lodging partners, and February will melt away in a hurry.
Resorts of the Canadian Rockies
There are some very solid ski deals right now from Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which owns six mountains across B.C., Alberta and Quebec. At Fernie’s Slopeside Lodge, for instance, guests can get 20 per cent off stays of two nights or more and save 25 per cent on lift tickets. Together, this yields a nightly ski-and-stay rate of $91 per person (plus taxes and based on double occupancy). That price somehow dips slightly, to $87, with a similar deal at Glacier Mountaineer Lodge at Kicking Horse (pictured below), and even further, to $68, at Kimberley’s Polaris Lodge.