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Globe and Mail: Globe Travel

April 25, 2009

BRITISH COLUMBIA: NORI WITH A TWIST

Dinner, fresh off the rocks
Margo Pfeiff explores a seaweed farm - and the spas and kitchens reaping its bumper crops

MAKE ME A MAKI

Remember the bubbled seaweed you used to pop on the beach as a kid? Called rockweed, it oozes a clear, anti-inflammatory fluid. Which is why Europeans have been into thalassotherapy, spa treatments with seaweed, for at least 150 years. And why Bernard started making body-friendly products in 2001.

Since then, Bernard's seaweed has been slathered on spa-goers from Tofino to Prince Edward Island. But for a luxe trial run, you may want to hit the Four Seasons Whistler. Seaweed is a key ingredient in both the spa's Sea to Sky signature massage and the B.C. glacial clay wrap. As the spa's director, Julia Danielsson, explains, "Seaweed helps rebalance and nourish depleted skin."

Or follow my lead and book a seaweed immersion at the Spruce Body Lab in Vancouver. It includes a firming seaweed gel with a slightly fishy smell, a seaweed "chamois" (essentially a slab of bull kelp) for your back and a final wrap-up in plastic, kind of like a sushi cone, while you simmer under a thermal blanket.

Come to think of it, maybe my new nickname should be the Seaweed Lady.

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