Afternoon tea has been officially served… daily, that is, in the elegant Xi Shi Lounge since the award-winning Shangri-La opened its doors in 2009. For the next few weeks, Shangri-La is shaking up this much loved tea tradition by adding an artistic element. The Artist in Residence Afternoon Tea will offer tea-goers the opportunity to explore and celebrate the diversity of Canadian landscapes, captured by master photographer Ron Smid in his latest collection, Canada: The Light on Our Land.

As guests sip on exotic loose leaf teas and nibble on Canadian coast-to-coast-inspired tea treats – think BC smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, Montreal smoked meat with sauerkraut and dijon mustard on rye, cinnamon dusted doughnuts with maple cream (our fave!), and, of course, scones with clotted cream and preserves – they can feast their eyes on perhaps the finest collection of Canadian landscape images of our time.

We were moved by Whistler-based photographer Ron Smid’s passion for his art, and how over the past two decades he travelled more than a quarter of a million miles to document the geographic diversity of Canada in all its beauty. You may be interested to know that Smid is a bit of a purist, favouring a vintage 1936 large-format wooden camera to capture the elusive light on traditional transparency film. Each image is then meticulously printed by hand onto Cibachrome classic paper, offering the maximum in depth, colour purity, and organic beauty unlike any other printing process. One of our favourite images from this outstanding collection is of Georgian Bay in Ontario. The colours and composition are reminiscent of a Group of Seven painting by Arthur Lismer – truly a masterpiece.

The Artist in Residence Afternoon Tea runs until April 15th and is available daily from 11am to 5pm for $38.00 per person. Ron Smid will be in the lounge on Saturdays and Sundays, from 1pm to 4 pm, to speak about the collection, share tales from his journeys across Canada’s wilderness, and answer questions about his unique and rare photography process.