The Lake They Call Skeleton
We were standing at the edge of a lake so clear it looked like a photograph of itself. Blue sky overhead, kids jumping off rocks into cold water, a couple of sailboats drifting at distance, and out in the middle of it all a small island catching the afternoon sun at exactly the wrong angle to make out clearly. Someone beside me said, How perfect must a life be if you get to spend it out there.
I just nodded. In that moment Canada was the most beautiful country on earth. And it wasn’t particularly close.
The occasion was a Mercedes-Benz press weekend in Toronto—the new S-Class was the nominal reason for all of us being there—but what I actually remember is everything surrounding the car. The chauffeur who picked us up at the airport, a former cop with the easy confidence of someone who’s seen a city from every angle, spent the entire ride telling us which sports team was worth caring about, which companies ran the skyline, and where to find the best strip club in the northern hemisphere. By the time we pulled up to the Four Seasons, I felt like I’d already been living in Toronto for three months.
My first act in the hotel room was the ritual I’ve been performing in every hotel room for as long as I can remember: clothes off, MTV on, run the bath. Steal something small from the minibar. I ended up lying in lavender-scented foam with a cold can of Red Bull, watching teenagers on American television snap their ankles off skateboards while a host in oversized hip-hop gear laughed at them. A woman in gold chains and Nike Air Max cackled from somewhere off-screen. Some version of Jackass was apparently still very much alive in North America. MTV was running its shadow programming everywhere.
The city itself won me over faster than I expected, and I had no reason to expect anything. Canada had meant Justin Bieber, lumberjack mythology, and a vague sense of being the United States’ more polite sibling. Toronto corrected all of that immediately. The boutiques along the western stretch of Queen Street, handmade and specific in ways that chain retail can’t fake. A barbecue on an island in the middle of the lake—a wooden house the size of a small estate, only reachable by motorboat, surrounded by water on all sides. A street market in the middle of the city where artists from everywhere had dragged their work out into the summer heat. And one evening, in warm rain, a group of street musicians in full Pokémon costumes performing "Gangnam Style." You can’t manufacture that. It either happens or it doesn’t.
Kai and Teymur drove the S-Class. I sat in the back and used the Wi-Fi. The car does that now—in-car internet, screens operated by remote control, a drinks holder that lit up blue and kept your Coke cold while the safety systems quietly handled whatever happened in front of the bumper. A pedestrian stepping out? Fine. Someone tailgating? Fine. I felt nothing throughout, which is either a testament to the engineering or a sign I’ve become too trusting of machines. The car can also drive itself, up to a point. I chose not to test exactly where that point was.
But the real discovery of the weekend was something called Clamato. Served ice cold from a can—clam juice, tomato juice, spices. I know how that sounds. I know. But it tastes like a late afternoon by water, and it pairs with everything the Canadian kitchen offers, which turns out to be more than you’d think. I haven’t found it in Berlin, which feels like a genuine injustice. If you encounter it somewhere, buy more than you think you need.
The weekend went fast. These trips always do. But Toronto stayed with me in a way that city weekends usually don’t—that specific combination of American self-assurance and European ease, lit by a quality of light I haven’t seen anywhere else. One day, maybe, we’ll go back to that lake. The one the locals call Skeleton. The sky will be doing that thing it was doing that afternoon. Kids jumping off rocks into cold water. And the island will still be sitting out there in the glare, just far enough away to make you wonder what kind of life gets to happen on it.