A RARE NOVEMBER SNOWFALL had blanketed Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, and Robert Bateman, returning from gallery exhibitions in Alberta, found his 80-acre property transformed. When he greeted us in his driveway the next morning, his sky-blue eyes looked vivid against the snow. Bateman is among Canada's acclaimed artists. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and his work has an international following. Among many key exhibitions was his 1987 show at the Smithsonian Institution. His life remains very full. On this day, he was preparing for his wife's 60th birthday, and a week of appearances in British Columbia. He was also eager to go cross-country skiing in the fresh snow. But the soft-spoken artist still found time to share his world. In May, he will be 77. Despite some wrinkles and a hint of weariness, the painter, writer and naturalist appears ageless. The hands that have produced thousands of paintings are steady. He's quick to spot a bird in the distance. His step is sure and light. "Wherever I am, I'm always into it," Bateman says. His wife, Birgit Freybe Bateman, puts it another way. "He has a desire to share events with everybody," she says. On his deathbed, he wants to be able to say he was all used up, she adds. Freybe Bateman is a professional photographer and, like her husband, a former teacher. They are a team. They have daily afternoon naps, a habit Bateman adopted while teaching in Nigeria, from 1963-65. They hike their hilly property each day. They are extremely health conscious, and favour organic foods and nutritional supplements. They have visited every continent, always photographing and sketching their surroundings. They could have settled anywhere, but in 1985 they chose to leave Ontario, where Bateman was born, and move to Salt Spring. Suburbia was encroaching on their once wild environs. And a B.C. friend had challenged them, asking why they lived in purgatory when they could be in paradise. Freybe Bateman's dreams of life in Kenya or Japan evaporated when she discovered the relaxed charms of Salt Spring. "It's such a quiet, civilized place," she says. They settled into a seaside cottage on two acres, purchased from American actress Eileen Brennan. The cottage at Fulford Harbour grew, but the admired artist never had the studio he deserved in it. When they moved about 10 kilometres away, in May 2005, it was largely to give Bateman more space, so he wouldn't be "overcrowded by three females in a room with him," says his wife. Half the 4,500-square-foot home is taken up by studio and offices for the couple and their two assistants. Their staff also includes two handymen and a gardener. They bought the inland property in 1986 as an investment, says Freybe Bateman, the family financier. "I don't believe in the stock market," she says. From his two marriages, Bateman has five children. Two of them, John and Sarah, live nearby. Family gatherings are frequent and joyful. Grandchildren explore the property and swim in a trout-bearing lake, co-owned by the Batemans and Ducks Unlimited. The expansive terrace blurs the line between inside and out. The indoor fireplace beckons on winter evenings. "Maybe the biggest luxuries in life are not the things we see in magazines, but to see your children, and grow your own vegetables," Freybe Bateman observes. A long lane through the forest, ending in a downhill curve, brings visitors to the secluded, two-storey wooden house. Century-old heritage apple trees dot the yard. Bateman has built a two-metre-tall (seven-foot) deer-proof fence to protect their vegetable, berry and flower gardens. An old farmhouse, where Bateman's son, Alan, and his family lived for a year, stands near the main house. Many birds flutter around feeders, including those positioned just outside Bateman's studio window. This "bucolic look," rather than "wall-to-wall green" is how the artist describes rural life. It is the connections between humans and nature that stir him. "Traditional man's interface with nature" appeals to him, he says. As an example, he recalls the thoughtfully planned Bavarian towns he has visited, where trout-laden streams run past manufactured edifices. The Batemans' new home embodies that philosophy of integrating nature with carefully considered development. The large, old-growth fir timbers supporting the home were selectively logged off their property. Outdoor paths invite investigation. Oval and diamond patterning, which Bateman has loved since he first encountered it in Africa, enhances interior and exterior woodwork. The main, covered walkway, leading down steps to the front door, features privacy screens of latticework and trellises. Bateman wants them overgrown with honeysuckles. A small stream tumbles in, then flows through the rock garden created by Bateman, assisted by diorama builders from Victoria's Royal BC Museum. Real boulders were "married" with rocks made from latex moulds. Bateman fit the stones together like a puzzle, and if you want to distinguish between real and fake, well, you're between a rock and a hard place. As someone who captures wildlife on canvas, his challenge is to make the contrived look uncontrived, he says. The home's front door is a single plank of intricately carved mahogany from Nigeria. Bateman acquired the piece in 1965, and this is his third house to feature it. The door will travel no more. This is his last home, he says. This ultimate abode is an amalgam, reflecting all the things they've seen and loved in their travels around the globe. There are Arts and Crafts touches, as in the little, paned windows. Japanese elements include the water features and wood detailing. The West Coast aesthetic is in the wood shakes and fir timbers. A large 19th-century Italian olive jar and three small, Nigerian pots dominate the entryway. Beyond, through large windows, Ford Lake gleams. Near the entrance is one of Freybe Bateman's photos of a meat-packing plant. The industrial setting provides a counterpoint to her husband's depictions of nature. The photo has personal meaning: her family started the Vancouver-based Freybe meat company in 1955, after moving from Germany. The European influences in the home's interior contribute what Freybe Bateman calls a "heavy look." The furnishings include a dark brown grand piano, dark wood floors, brown leather couches, an 18th-century German cabinet, and the dining table with 12 chairs that she bought for $200 at a Vancouver auction when she was just 22. The stern looking nutcracker sculpture Bateman made for his wife's birthday in 1992 stands at attention beside his painting of a blackbird. A shelf full of art books holds works on American Indian and African art, Auguste Rodin, Tom Thomson and Emily Carr, among others. Other favourite authors are German playwright Bertolt Brecht and American Zen priest and writer Peter Matthiessen. And everywhere there are Bateman's canvases, including a circa-1960 Group of Seven-influenced work that would silence critics who consider him an illustrator rather than a painter. The studio, where more paintings are in the works, is just to the left of the home's entrance. The space was planned to capture the northern light prized by artists. As Bateman settles in there, he looks out the window at the feeding birds, then scrutinizes the four small acrylic paintings on his easel. He is accustomed to painting and talking simultaneously, and he moves around often. "Everything rolls here," he says. "I'm always changing positions." Many shelves in the studio are filled with books about birds. He has even written one. His 2002 work, Birds, features his bird paintings and his reflections about the avian world. Bateman paints the creatures he likes, working from photos. Sometimes he refers to as many as 50 images of a subject. "I never run out of ideas," he says. "When I did abstracts, I ran out of ideas. But the world of nature is so varied, I can't possibly ever begin to scratch the surface." As he roves around his domain, Bateman might listen to Bach, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Hank Williams, or jazz. He paints all day, every day - often until 10 p.m. - with breaks for napping, hiking, meals, and time on the exercise machine, during which he listens to the BBC World Service. His assistants, Alex Fischer and Kate Carson, handle phone calls. Bateman prefers the natural world outside his studio window to the bits and bytes of information technology. Today's computer generation views nature, history and culture as data on a screen, he says. When people can see spotted owls in virtual form, that seems to be good enough for them, he laments, adding, "We're entering a phase of nature deficit disorder." In his beautiful but not extravagant island home, he avoids that dysfunctional world. Is there anything that could complete the picture for this artist? "I would love to have a dog," he says. His heart is set on a Labradoodle, a Labrador retriever/poodle cross. However, due to their travel schedule and his wife's allergies, he may have to content himself with a painted version.