How I nearly became a human Popsicle at Montreal’s Bota Bota spa

Bota Bota is a spa on a converted Richelieu River showboat and one-time ferry, now permanently anchored off Old Montreal. Photo by Sid Lee/Bota Bota.

I truly didn’t mean to jump into the outdoor cold bath on a January day when the windchill was -29C. I’ll do almost anything for a story—except cryogenically freeze myself.

But it was a matter of honour.

You see, I was spending the morning at Bota Bota, a Nordic-style spa on a former ferry now permanently berthed in the St. Lawrence River. I’d done the standard Scandinavian water circuit indoors: sauna, cold shower, hot tub, hammock, repeat. I’d even tried the outdoor hot tub overlooking Old Montreal, amid thick clouds of steam. I felt brave, virtuous and northern as all get-out.

Here I am in the outdoor hot tub at Bota Bota, feeling oh-so-Canadian…and, not incidentally, warm.

Eventually, I leaped out of the hot tub and sprinted across the frost-slicked deck, grabbing my robe and yanking it on as I scuttled back indoors. After a sojourn in a hammock with People magazine, and a quick visit to the sauna, it was time for a cold plunge again. My enthusiasm was, shall we say, muted.

I glanced out the window at a cold bath on the frozen deck, amazed it was still open in this weather. Perhaps it isn’t, I thought. If I try this door, I’ll bet it’s locked.

I tried the door. It opened.

Then I saw two women watching me, clearly curious to see whether I intended to brave the cold bath.

Well, crap. Now I couldn’t back down. I’d just go outside and look at it, maybe stick a toe in, then come back in. Hey, that was more than the spectators had done.

Why didn’t I just book a manicure? Photo by Sid Lee/Bota Bota.

Out I went. I doffed my robe, climbed the ladder up to the bath, went to stick my toe in…

…and skidded in, up to my neck.

Cold doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was the kind of cold I imagine George Clooney and Sandra Bullock would have felt in deep space in the movie Gravity, if they’d removed their space helmets. Similarly, it sucked all the breath out of my lungs and, seemingly, all the oxygen out of the surrounding area.

I shook my head once or twice, like a golden retriever frolicking in a river. Then I clambered out, grabbed my robe and ran for the door.

The spectators were paying me no heed. Either they were afraid my skin would be the colour of someone from the Blue Man Group, or they had never been paying me the slightest attention at all.

I vowed that would be the last time I succumbed to peer pressure, and scampered off to the indoor hot tub.

The sauna is a lovely place to warm up, even if you don’t fall into the outdoor cold bath in the depths of winter. Photo by Sid Lee/Bota Bota.

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If you go

Bota Bota is open year round, and you can do the complete water circuit without ever going outside. Yoga and Pilates classes, facials, manicures and pedicures, massages and body scrubs are available, and there’s also a licensed restaurant. Visitors must be 18 or over. Prices for the water circuit range from $35 to $70, depending on the day of the week and how long you want to stay, and include a towel, a robe and a locker with an electronic key fob. (Bring your own flip flops and water bottle if you want them.)