Calligraphy Retreat in the Canadian Rockies · Calligraphy Nirvana 2027Nine nights.
Three in the mountains.
Six people.
The whole festival, fully handled.Then three nights in Canmore,in the studio with Métis artist Dawn Saunders Dahl andNorwegian calligrapher Christopher Haanes,with nowhere else to be.
Calligraphy Nirvana at a glance
The Calligraphy Nirvana 2027 is an all-inclusive, nine-night calligraphy and lettering retreat for six guests. It combines the Flourish Festival of Letters & Art in Calgary with a day in Banff and three nights at a mountain retreat in Canmore, Alberta, taught by artist Dawn Saunders Dahl and Norwegian calligrapher Christopher Haanes. It runs October 12–21, 2027 and costs $8,450 CAD per person.
- Dates
- Arrive Tuesday, October 12. Depart Thursday, October 21, 2027.
- Where
- Calgary, Banff and Canmore, Alberta, Canada
- Price
- $8,450 CAD per person, all-inclusive. GST extra.
- Group size
- 6 guests only
- Retreat teachers
- Dawn Saunders Dahl and Christopher Haanes
- Includes
- 9 hotel nights with an executive room in Calgary
- A massage on arrival
- Wednesday masterclass (teacher TBA)
- Festival pass with two 2-day workshops with the teachers you choose
- Banff day with mountaintop lunch and Banff Springs Hotel dinner
- 2 studio days with Dawn Saunders Dahl and Christopher Haanes
- Every meal
- Every supply
- All ground travel: airport pickup, Calgary, Banff, Canmore and back
- Refunds
- Full refund if you cancel before August 1, 2027
Flourish is a lot. The good kind of a lot: four days of ink, teachers, friends and not nearly enough sleep.
So we built a week that ends the opposite way.
Six guests get the whole festival with zero logistics: the Wednesday masterclass (teacher to be announced), then four days of workshops with the teachers you choose.
(You will not once Google “parking near hotel.”)
Then comes the part nobody else gets: three nights in the Rockies, two extraordinary teachers, a long table and actual time to make something.
Your guild is going to get so tired of hearing about this.
We fully support it.
From the festival floor
to the fireside.
Arrive and exhale.
We meet you at the airport and take you to your executive room, already checked in. Drop your bags and go straight to your massage. (Yes, straight there. Do not pass Go. Do not check email.) You’re here a day before the crowds, so unpack your pens, take the long shower, and let us handle dinner. And breakfast. And every meal after that.
Masterclass, then welcome to Flourish.
Start with the Wednesday masterclass (teacher to be announced). No registration line for you: your lanyard and everything else are already sorted. Just head to the welcome dinner to meet the faculty and the rest of your new favourite people. Name tags will be involved. Possibly calligraphed.
Four days of ink, front row.
Two two-day workshops of your choice with the Flourish 2027 faculty, plus keynotes, evening events and the Experience Hall. Your supplies are waiting when you sit down, which means no frantic 11 pm hunt for the one nib you forgot. (We’ve all been there.)
Lunch on a mountaintop. Dinner in a castle.
Spend the day in Banff with the whole Flourish group, with lunch at the top of the mountain. Then everyone else piles back on the road to Calgary and you… don’t. Dinner is at the Banff Springs Hotel (yes, the castle), and afterwards we drive you to Canmore, where your room is ready and waiting. Very main character.
Two studio days in the mountains.
Slow mornings. A long table. Peaks out the window. Dawn Saunders Dahl, whose Métis roots in Canmore run deep, and Christopher Haanes, the calligrapher behind the Nobel Peace Prize diplomas, making right alongside you. With only six of you, it’s basically private tutoring with a view (and better snacks). No bell. No schedule. No line for lunch.
Head home, transformed.
You leave with the pieces you made, five new friends, a camera roll that’s 80% mountains, and strong opinions about which view was best.
Dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel
The castle
in the Rockies.
Spend the day in Banff with the whole Flourish crowd, with lunch at the top of the mountain. Then everyone else heads back to Calgary, and you get shown to your table at the Banff Springs Hotel. Yes, the one that looks like a castle. Because it basically is one.
After dessert, we drive you to Canmore and check you in. Your only job is remembering which bag has your pyjamas.
Three nights in Canmore.
Pens down. Peaks up.
Canmore is Banff’s quieter, cooler sibling: Rockies on every side, fewer tour buses, and in mid-October the light does this thing that makes people stop mid-sentence.
Your retreat is a luxury stay with room to spread out, a studio for the six of you, and two teachers who are not, for once, sprinting to their next class.
Six guests, two teachers. Every question gets answered. Every piece gets looked at. Nobody hides in the back row (there is no back row).
Two full studio days. No bell, no room change, no one hovering over your seat.
Executive rooms, every meal, every supply. Your only job is the work in front of you. Tough gig.
Two teachers.
One very lucky table.
One with deep historical and Métis roots right here in Canmore. One of the most respected calligraphers working today, who almost never teaches in North America. Together, they teach you to look at the landscape, and at your letters, a little differently.
Dawn Saunders Dahl
Some artists teach you how to see. Others inspire you to see the world differently. Dawn Saunders Dahl does both.
An accomplished multidisciplinary artist, educator and curator, Dawn has spent more than two decades creating art, championing artists and bringing ambitious creative projects to life across Canada. With two Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, in Painting and Ceramics, she brings an extraordinary breadth of experience to her teaching.
Her career includes leadership roles with the Edmonton Arts Council, the Town of Canmore and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, and curatorial work on significant public art initiatives, including Ottawa’s Ādisōke library and archives project.
A proud citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta, Dawn explores the connections between land, memory, ancestry and identity across painting, drawing, ceramics and mixed media. At Listen Studios in Canmore, she has created a welcoming space where artists experiment, explore and reconnect with their creativity.
Her teaching encourages curiosity, observation and the freedom to experiment, helping artists move past the pursuit of perfection to something wonderfully personal. We’re delighted to welcome her to Calligraphy Nirvana.
Christopher Haanes
One of Scandinavia’s foremost calligraphers. Four days at the festival, then two days at your table in the mountains.
Christopher trained under Ann Camp at the Roehampton Institute in London, in the tradition of Edward Johnston, and in 1989 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. At the time, he was the second-youngest person and the only Scandinavian to receive the honour.
He hand-letters the Nobel Peace Prize diplomas each year to the exacting standards of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and designed the logo and corporate typeface for Cappelen Damm, Norway’s largest publishing house, with American type designer Sumner Stone.
He has taught in more than 17 countries and written several books, including Bokstavelig, published in English in 2026 as Literally. He treats calligraphy as an exploration of the structure of the alphabet rather than as decoration, and in 2026 he received the Gottfried Pott Memorial Award.
At the festival he teaches Italic and Gothic. In Canmore, there are six of you and one of him. That almost never happens.
Meet Christopher →One price.
Then put your wallet away.
Nights of accommodation
Six in an executive room in Calgary, three at the mountain retreat in Canmore. Good pillows guaranteed. (Okay, we can’t technically guarantee the pillows. We’ll try.)
Massage on arrival
Your trip starts on a massage table, not in a lineup. Airplane neck, gone.
Wednesday masterclass
Kick off the festival with a masterclass on Wednesday, October 13. Teacher to be announced.
Two-day festival workshops
A Full Festival Pass with the teachers you choose. Pick your workshops the minute you book, before the good ones fill up.
Studio days with two teachers
A private mountain retreat for the six of you, with artist Dawn Saunders Dahl and calligrapher Christopher Haanes. Like a workshop, minus the crowd.
Day in Banff, done properly
Lunch at the top of the mountain with the whole Flourish group. Bring a jacket. Bring your phone. You’ll want both.
Dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel
A Nirvana-only evening at the castle in the Rockies. Dress code: whatever makes you feel fancy.
Every meal
Breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day from arrival to departure. Put the wallet away. No, really.
Every supply
Everything for your workshops and the retreat, laid out when you sit down. Your suitcase thanks you.
All ground travel
Airport pickup when you land, then Calgary to Banff, Banff to Canmore, Canmore back to Calgary. You never once have to figure out a shuttle or stand in a check-in line.
Keynotes, evening events and the Experience Hall
All the festival extras, front and centre.
Not included: your flights to and from Calgary.
Six packages.
Then it's a story someone else tells.
We kept this small on purpose. Six is the magic number where the mountain days feel like a getaway with friends, not a class with a seating chart.
When the six are gone, they’re gone. We are not adding a seventh chair to the fireplace. (We asked. The fireplace said no.)
Calligraphy Nirvana All-Inclusive
- 9 nights: 6 in an executive room in Calgary, 3 in Canmore
- A massage on arrival
- Wednesday masterclass (teacher TBA)
- Full Festival Pass with 2 two-day workshops with the teachers you choose
- 2 mountain studio days with Dawn Saunders Dahl and Christopher Haanes
- Banff day with lunch at the top of the mountain
- Private dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel
- Every meal and every supply
- Airport pickup and all ground travel, Calgary to Canmore and back
GST added at checkout. Full refund if you cancel before August 1, 2027.
Calligraphy Nirvana questions, answered.
How much does Calligraphy Nirvana cost?
$8,450 CAD per person, plus GST. That covers nine hotel nights (with an executive room in Calgary), a massage on arrival, a Full Festival Pass, the Banff day with lunch at the top of the mountain and dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel, two studio days in Canmore with Dawn Saunders Dahl and Christopher Haanes, every meal and every supply.
When and where is the Flourish Festival of Letters & Art 2027?
The festival runs October 13–17, 2027 in Calgary, Alberta. Nirvana guests arrive the day before, on October 12, and stay through October 21 for the Banff day and the Canmore retreat.
Do I need calligraphy experience?
Nope. The festival has beginner workshops, and with only six guests on the retreat, your two teachers meet you exactly where you are, whether it’s your first broad-edge pen or your fiftieth commission.
Who is Calligraphy Nirvana for?
Anyone who loves letters and wants the week to feel like a getaway, not a logistics project. If you’ve ever come home from a workshop needing a vacation from your vacation, this one’s for you.
Who teaches the mountain retreat?
Dawn Saunders Dahl, a Métis artist and educator with deep roots in Canmore and the founder of Listen Studios, teaches alongside Christopher Haanes, the Norwegian calligrapher who hand-letters the Nobel Peace Prize diplomas. Christopher almost never teaches in North America, and in Canmore he will be at a table of six.
When do I choose my festival workshops?
Right away. As soon as your payment goes through, you'll get a link to choose your two workshops. Christopher's and Max's classes are capped at 20, so booking early helps.
Where will I stay?
Every night is in a hotel: six nights in an executive room in Calgary during the festival, and three nights at a luxury hotel in the mountains.
How do I get to Canmore?
We take you. All your travel during the trip is covered: we pick you up at the Calgary airport when you land on October 12, you ride to Banff with the whole Flourish group on October 18, we drive you to Canmore after dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel, and we bring you back to Calgary on October 21. You just bring your flights to and from Calgary.
What isn't included?
Your flights to and from Calgary. Everything else, from your room to your meals to your supplies, is covered. (Souvenir shopping in Banff is also on you. We believe in you.)
What's your refund policy?
Cancel before August 1, 2027 and we'll refund your package. After August 1, packages are non-refundable, since that's when we confirm rooms and the retreat on your behalf.
Can I talk to someone first?
Please do. Email [email protected] or call 403-815-8484, and you’ll get me, Jill. Not a bot. Not a form. Me.
Nine nights you'll be
talking about until 2030.
Six packages. One week. The festival, the mountains, and Dawn and Christopher all to yourselves. Go on. You know you want to.
Reserve my spotQuestions? [email protected] · 403-815-8484