This holiday resort will make you feel like you’ve stepped into the pages of a fairytale.

Tucked away in a forest in the Canadian province of Alberta, Charmed Resorts brings childhood stories to life through 12 life-sized fantasy vacation rentals spread across two areas of woodland named ‘Wonder Way’ and ‘Storybook Square’.

The ‘storybook cottages’ include Belle’s Cottage on Wonder Way, inspired by Beauty and the Beast, and on Storybook Square there’s Rapunzel’s Tower, based on the high tower where the fictional Princess Rapunzel famously let down her long hair, and Jack’s Cottage, decorated with a bright blue door and a giant beanstalk twisting its way up the wall.

Other Storybook Square cottages include Rumpelstiltskin’s Tower, Hatter’s House, and Gingerbread Cottage, described by the resort as the home of the Wicked Witch in the story Hansel and Gretel.

At Wonder Way, meanwhile, guests will also find the resort’s popular Peter Pan-themed Neverland collection, which comprises Captain Hook’s Ship, Wendy’s Townhouse, and the Lost Boys’ Treehouse. 

Guests at the three-storey treehouse can look out for ‘Peter Pan’s shadow’, which is painted on one of the walls inside, and take advantage of its wraparound balcony, which connects to an outdoor slide.

Wendy’s Townhouse also features an outdoor slide, while inside there is enough room for a dining table where guests can enjoy ‘teatime’ with a view of Belle’s Cottage. 

Founder and creator Audrey Leavitt, 37, who runs the resort with her landscaper husband Tyson, 39, said Wendy’s Townhouse is based on the London home of Wendy, John, and Michael in Disney’s Peter Pan.

‘I love it,’ she said.

‘We got to do a lot of Victorian-inspired decor on the inside mixed with some Peter Pan whimsical additions as well.

‘It has queen bunkbeds upstairs, built all inhouse, that are really cool.’

Audrey said ‘Tinkerbell’s house is coming next’ to the Peter Pan collection, which is a big hit among guests.

‘All our Peter Pan builds are currently guest favourites,’ she added.

‘They are our newest ones, they also have kitchen sinks in them. They’re a little bit bigger and they’re in a little bit more of a private area at the resort.

‘Those ones seem to be the most popular right now as well as Rapunzel’s Cottage, which was the second cottage that we built and has always been a favourite among our guests.’

She added: ‘One time, we showed up and there were two families totally dressed up in Peter-Pan-themed clothes. They had all the characters there.

‘It was so cute and we ended up filming a TikTok with them because they were just so awesome.’ 

Cottages sleep between four and six guests and are furnished with a mixture of queen-sized beds and bunkbeds, providing a ‘campground’ atmosphere surrounded by lakes, hiking and biking trails, and rivers.

They each come equipped with an electric fireplace, a wood-fired hot tub, a kitchenette with a small fridge and microwave, an outdoor BBQ or griddle, a firepit and a picnic table.

‘You’re really there to enjoy the outdoor camping experience but in a really cool, themed environment,’ Audrey added. 

Audrey and Tyson originally went into business building custom playhouses for ‘whimsical’ families under the name Charmed Playhouses.

But as their playhouses became more intricate, they decided to open Charmed Resorts and invite guests to stay overnight at what they describe on their website as ‘a campground full of storybook cottages’.

Audrey said: ‘Our playhouses were getting bigger and more beautiful and very few people have the time or the space to put one in their backyard.

‘So we really wanted to make some sort of product that was more accessible to a lot of families to enjoy.

‘We talked about the resort for a while before we opened it, about how much fun it would be to have a bunch of families come and visit at once.’

The couple, parents to Emmet, 14, Miles, 13, Lydia, 11, and Wynn, four months, are often inspired by the things they loved as children and the things their own children love now.

Their ideas are then presented to the Charmed Resorts 25-strong team, who give their input, as well as TikTok followers on the company’s charmed.fam page.

Future ideas put to their followers on TikTok include ‘Snow White’s Cottage complete with a thatched roof’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’s Tower overgrown with ivy and moss’, and the ‘Little Mermaid’s Seaside Cottage where she visits her mermaid family’. 

Audrey said: ‘We have an idea… and then we take it to our team at work.

‘We also usually put our ideas out on social media and we let our followers be the final voice that decides what comes next. 

‘That’s really fun for people who follow us, they get to be part of the process from start to finish.

‘It usually comes together really well when we run it through all those stages of scrutiny.’ 

Each accommodation takes between three and five weeks to build inhouse at the resort, in Blairmore, which has been running for two years, with the cottage-building operation now in its eighth year.

‘We have a pretty awesome team from start to finish, right from the design phase to building and construction inhouse and the installation, which usually takes place with a crane onsite,’ Audrey said.

‘With planning, it takes a little longer but the building part we can finish in a month.’

Audrey said: ‘We build our own cottages. We build everything from windows and doors to all the little details.’

The company’s inhouse design team is based at the resort and its factory is in the nearby city of Lethbridge, where Audrey and her family live. 

In the past, guests have hired out areas of the resort to host special events and even weddings – but the waiting list for tying the knot currently sits at two years. 

The resort celebrated 100 per cent occupancy across all its 11 cottages in July and has welcomed guests from across the US, Canada, and beyond.

Audrey said it is ‘a very humbling experience’ and that the family ‘could not ask for more’.

She added: ‘My other kids were around for the grind of starting out new business and Wynn gets to grow up in this fairytale environment, so we are so excited about that.’

Fans of Charmed Resorts can also design and order their own playhouse or doghouse from Audrey and Tyson, under the ‘shop’ section of their website.

‘Our team is dedicated to tapping into our clients’ imagination, extracting their vision, and making it a reality,’ the page says.

By Samuel Draper For Mailonline

Published: 12:55 EDT, 18 June 2023 | Updated: 15:23 EDT, 18 June 2023

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Shocking moment world No 75 golfer and former PGA Tour winner Adam Hadwin is FLOORED by security while trying to celebrate Nick Taylor’s Canadian Open victory on the green

• Nick Taylor became the first Canadian to win the Canadian Open since 1954
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By Ben Nagle For Dailymail.Com

Published: 20:44 EDT, 11 June 2023 | Updated: 20:44 EDT, 11 June 2023

A major Kremlin critic detained in Russia has been granted honorary Canadian citizenship in a bid to help win his freedom – prompting calls for the US and Britain to play their part to increase his chances of making it out alive. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a close ally of murdered opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, was jailed for 25 years on treason charges on April 17 this year after surviving two poisonings which left him in a coma in both 2015 and 2017. 

The 41-year-old British-Russian national also lived in Washington for at least a decade, and his wife Evgenia Kara-Murza is still based in the US with their three children aged 11, 14, and 17.  

After flying back to Russia at the outbreak of Putin‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year to oppose the war, he was detained on charges of treason and spreading false information about the Russian army via a process he described as a ‘show trial’. 

Kara-Murza’s close friend and activist, Bill Browder, told the Dailymail.com that the unanimous decision by Canadian parliament to grant him honorary citizenship on Thursday is ‘really important’ for his chances of being freed alive. 

Browder, an American-British businessman, added that this privilege has only been granted to seven people previously, including Nelson Mandela.  

Describing Kara-Murza as ‘the Russian equivalent of Nelson Mandela’, he explained: ‘He’s been given this really important recognition which will hopefully signal to the Russians that he shouldn’t be killed because he’s an important person that could be used to negotiate with in future.

‘There’s going to be a moment in time where there’s going to be a negotiation about different things between Putin and the West.

‘By giving him this status, by acknowledging his importance officially like this, it means his name will be high on the list when there are these negotiations and discussions taking place.’

The 59-year-old founder of investment fund Hermitage Capital Management said Kara-Murza has been given the ‘longest sentence of any political prisoner in Russia’ because he has been ‘so effective at upsetting Putin’.

‘They tried to kill him twice with poison in 2015 and 2017, and so (in the West) he’s really been acknowledged and recognized as the purest and most beloved Russian opposition politician to Putin,’ Browder said. 

‘He is the type of person that the West wants to lead Russia – when Putin is out or when the war is over – to lead it out of this terrible place that it’s in.’

Kara-Murza was also a key campaigner for Congress passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012 – a bill intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Browder’s company lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a prison in 2009. 

The Moscow-born politician was also highly instrumental in passing Canada’s equivalent Magnitsky Law in 2017.  

‘Vladimir has opposed the war, he’s criticized Putin, he’s been responsible for the Magnitsky Act being passed in 35 countries,’ Browder said. 

He added that the 25-year term which Kara-Murza is serving in a jail north of Moscow could be a ‘death sentence’ because he has already ‘lost more then 50 pounds’, and his health is still severely impacted by the poisonings.

His wife Evgenia also told Reuters in May that Russian authorities have been torturing him psychologically by denying him calls with his children. 

For this reason, Browder is among those urgently campaigning for the US and Britain to follow Canada’s example.  

In the US, this means adding him to the Levinson Act list of people officially recognized as being unlawfully detained, which was used to free American basketball player Brittney Griner from Russian jail last year.

‘This piece of legislation says if you get a special designation then the US government will use all of its resources to get you free,’ Browder said.

‘So, we’re in parallel conducting a campaign to get Vladimir Kara-Murza the designation of unlawfully detained in America, so that the US government joins in this effort.

‘We recently had 81 Members of Congress write a letter to the Secretary of State calling on him to get that designation.

‘Canada doesn’t have a Levinson Act, so honorary citizenship was as close as we’re going to get, which is very helpful.’

The fact there are two people jailed in Russia who are already listed as unlawfully detained – Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich – could be holding the US back from adding Kara-Murza to the list, according to Browder. 

Meanwhile, there are currently no other known Canadian or British citizens unlawfully detained in Russia. 

‘Thursday’s move by Canada lights the fire under the British government’s weir, because they need to be more active,’ Browder said. 

‘If the Canadians are ready to make him an honorary citizen, then it raises the question: what is the British government doing for him, when he is a legitimate British citizen?’

The UK Foreign Office (FCDO) has placed sanctions on three individuals involved in Kara-Murza’s arrest and two members of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, who followed him prior to the poisonings.

Those sanctioned for their involvement in Kara-Murza’s arrest have been named as Elena Lenskaya, the judge who approved the arrest, and investigators Denis Kolesnikov and Andrei Zadachin.

FSB agents Alexander Samofal and Konstantin Kudryavtsev have also been sanctioned, with the FCDO saying they were part of an ‘operational team’ that followed Kara-Murza on multiple trips before he was poisoned. 

The FCDO and the Canadian government has been approached for comment.  

Smoke from more than 400 Canadian wildfires is causing a massive plunge in air quality across the US. 

Breathing in is not just gross – poor air quality can cause several health problems like asthma, allergies and heart disease. Anyone with health issues should limit their time outside.

DailyMail.com has uncovered free online tools and apps that let you know how polluted the air is in your area, allowing you to see if it is safe to go outside. 

Numerous service share real-time air quality information for hundreds of cities. 

Below are the tools you might need for the next week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning the public of headaches, stinging eyes and other health issues that may arise after being outdoors. 

Tiny particulates from wildfire smoke can enter the lungs and then the bloodstream

It would help if you watched what you’re breathing in right now. 

Purple Air

This web-based service gets you real-time air quality data from sensors located all around the globe. 

Purple Ai uses a laser particle counter that can count suspended particles in sizes that are processed by the sensor using an algorithm to calculate the PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10 mass concentration.

The smoke from the Canadian wildfires is filling the air with tiny particles called PM2.5, measuring around 2.5 micrometers.

In comparison, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, a single human hair is about 70 micrometers, and the human eye can’t see anything smaller than 25 micrometers.

Here is the link to PurpleAir. 

AirNow 

And the US government runs the app Air Now, which provides real-time air quality information for over 500 cities.

The app, developed by the EPA, automatically displays the current AQI (Air Quality Index) for your local area or any area you wish to check and allows you to store multiple locations for quick reference.

AirNow is available on iPhone and Android. 

Google Maps

This is a great service for those who do not want to download an app just to check the air quality. 

The tech giant launched the feature in 2017  at a street level and rolled it out to Maps in 2022 in the app and the desktop version.

Using data gathered from agencies like the EPA, Google Maps displays an AQI overlay on the map grid to show how healthy the air in the area is.

AQI to Cigarettes Calculator

An online calculator takes the AQI + hours of exposure and tells you the impact on your health in terms of cigarettes.

The calculator uses PM 2.5 particle concentration — the number of particles in the air that are a specific size.

The health impact of a particle concentration of 22μg/m3 per 24 hours is equivalent to about one cigarette.

Breathing in the air in New York on Wednesday was like smoking 22 cigarettes. 

New York City had the worst air quality of any major metro area — ahead of New Delhi, India, Doha, Qatar and Baghdad, Iraq.

Most of New York state and all of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont are under an air quality alert. Detroit, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Boston, Hartford, Providence and Montpelier, Vermont are being hit hard, too.

Kids, older adults, and pregnant people with cardiovascular or respiratory diseases must be especially careful. 

Rule of thumb: You’re exposed if you can see or smell smoke.

New York City and the Northeast are braced for several more days of hazardous smog as large swaths of the nation continues to be blanketed by smoke from over 400 Canadian wildfires. 

A thick, nicotine-yellow haze shrouded the famous Big Apple skyline, while the city briefly became the most polluted in the world as its Air Quality Index score soared past 200, which is deemed ‘very unhealthy’. 

The crisis led Mayor Eric Adams to advise the entire city to stay inside and avoid the pollution, as more than a dozen US states and over 100 million people are under air quality alerts. 

Health experts warn breathing the fog can be as damaging as smoking six cigarettes, with side effects from the smog including irritation to the eyes and throat alongside breathing problems. 

A sheet of smoke from the wildfires first descended on New York on Tuesday before thickening throughout the afternoon, leaving those in Manhattan unable to see the New Jersey skyline across the Hudson River. 

As well as sending New Yorkers inside, air quality alerts were also introduced in states including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, Virginia and the Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service. 

In the most recent developments; 

While some areas including Indiana and Ohio saw the smoke partially disperse Wednesday morning, other regions such as Pennsylvania and Virginia will see the fog remain for several days. 

At around 10pm Tuesday, New York briefly set the mark for the worst air pollution in the world, overtaking the Indian capital of Delhi. 

According to the IQAir rankings, New York had the second worst air pollution in the world as of Wednesday afternoon, with its air particle (PM2.5) concentration 14.6 times stronger than the WHO’s guidelines.

The city of Detroit, Michigan was also in the top five metros for the worst air quality on Wednesday morning, with numerous US cities continuing to be plagued by the smog. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams urged vulnerable residents to be cautious amid the crisis, as he also blamed climate change for the yellow skies. 

‘This may be the first time we’ve experienced something like this on this magnitude,’ he said. ‘Let me be clear, it’s not the last.’

The city’s health advisory warning has since been extended until 8pm Thursday, as officials urge residents to avoid outdoor exposure and to stay indoors when possible. 

Much of the smoke has been from Quebec, where over 400 wildfires are burning as Canadian officials warn they are in the midst of their worst fire season on record. 

Throughout the nation, Canadian officials have deemed more than 240 of the blazes to be ‘out of control’. 

Many of the fires that sparked the smoke crisis have been burning for weeks, but were forced south in recent days due to a storm system blowing in over Nova Scotia. 

The weather pushed much of the smoke across the East Coast, and is expected to continue for the next several days. 

Meteorologist Metthew Cappuci tweeted Wednesday that New York’s air quality would be worse than the day before, bringing visibility in the city to below three miles. He warned that residents may even be able to taste the smoke and may experience stinging eyes.

Unseasonably dry and warm weather has been blamed for the crisis, with the coming months expected to bring more of the same conditions that turned Canadian forestry into a tinderbox. 

Last month alone saw around 6.6 million acres burn in wildfires, the equivalent of five million football fields. 

The US Environmental Protection Agency introduced sweeping air quality alerts throughout Tuesday as the smoke continued to blow in from across the northern border. 

Over 100 million people are under some form of warning, with residents in the northeast seeing their air quality reclassified as ‘unhealthy’. 

In New York City, officials also warned vulnerable individuals such as the elderly or those with breathing problems to avoid exercising outside and to ensure they have a high-grade mask. 

The effects are understandably worse at the source of the wildfires, as Environment Canada issued its strongest possible air quality warning by placing Ottawa under a ‘very high risk’ alert. 

Residents of Toronto and the surrounding areas also saw their air quality deemed ‘high risk’. 

Thousands of people have also been evacuated across the country, with fires also reported in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories. 

Air quality warnings are yet to be lifted throughout the US, with pollution levels at unhealthy levels in states including North Dakota, Missouri and Virginia. 

For those in cities with hazardous levels, residents are advised to exercise indoors and wear a good quality mask when stepping outside. 

The effects of breathing wildfire smoke and air pollution can be extremely damaging, causing symptoms including chest pains and irritation of the eyes, nose and throat. 

‘On these elevated air pollution days, we’ll see an increased number of visits to hospital,’ said Matthew Adams, professor at the University of Toronto and the director of its Centre of Urban Environments, to the BBC. 

‘And the people that are visiting the hospital typically have a pre-existing respiratory disease.’