The resort sits on one of the last surviving land grants made by the 17th-century French monarchy to early settlers of New France. Located in the municipality of Montebello, Quebec, in the Outaouais region, the property straddles Quebec Route 148, the highway connecting Ottawa to Montreal. The Ottawa River bounds it to the south, forming the border between Ontario and Quebec. Old-growth forest and outcroppings of the Canadian Shield surround the grounds. West of the main buildings stands Manoir Papineau, a turreted house now preserved as a National Historic Site and historical museum -- the only structure in the area that breaks from the log cabin aesthetic that defines everything else. The land itself carries layers of history: from the seigneurial system of New France to the industrial ambitions of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the modern resort that inherited it all.

For 40 years, the Seigniory Club operated as one of North America's most exclusive retreats. Its guest list read like a diplomatic registry crossed with a Hollywood call sheet. President Harry Truman visited Canada in June 1947 and made a special trip to the club, having "expressed the desire to fish for his first Canadian trout during his visit." Edward, Prince of Wales, came as a young royal and later returned as the Duke of Windsor after his abdication. Perry Como performed. The club's privacy was its currency -- no cameras, no reporters, just log walls and deep forests and the quiet understanding that whatever happened inside stayed inside. The Canadian Pacific Railway owned the property and leased it to the club until 1970, when CPR's hotel division converted it into a public resort and renamed it Chateau Montebello.

Once opened to the public, the resort's combination of seclusion and grandeur made it a natural venue for high-stakes diplomacy. In 1981, the leaders of the world's seven largest economies gathered here for the G7 summit. The Bilderberg Group held its annual meeting at the resort in August 1983. That same October, NATO's Nuclear Planning Group convened its ministerial meeting within the same log walls. In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hosted President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon for the North American Leaders' Summit on the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The American National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized the building's significance in 1995, awarding it a special membership -- one of only two Canadian hotels so honored, alongside the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, itself another Canadian Pacific property.

The resort's 211 guest rooms occupy only a fraction of the property. Surrounding the hotel is a vast game reserve -- the Fairmont Kenauk -- containing more than 70 lakes, over 200 species of birds, and 50 animal species, maintained by a staff of biologists and naturalists. Thirteen self-sufficient chalets and cabins are scattered through the preserve. The grounds include a Stanley Thompson-designed 18-hole golf course, a 114-slip marina on the Ottawa River, cross-country skiing and hiking trails, dogsledding routes, skating rinks, a curling rink, and a snow tubing hill. The indoor swimming pool sits in a separate log cabin accessible by tunnel, its roof supported by painted totem poles. Outside, the landscape shifts with the seasons: green canopy and river light in summer, blazing maples in autumn, deep snow and frozen trails in winter. The resort exists where wilderness meets ceremony, and has since the day those 3,500 workers raised its walls.