11 great reasons to get away to Gananoque and Chaffeys Locks

If you like messing about in boats, you’ll love Gananoque, Ontario.

The town of about 5,200 people on the St. Lawrence River, between Kingston and Brockville, has a deep and enduring connection with watercraft. Since the mid-1800s, people have been puttering about the Thousand Islands in variations on a flat-bottomed boat, the St. Lawrence skiff. You can learn about it and other locally made watercraft, such as motorized runabouts and child-sized tin boats, at the fascinating Thousand Islands Boat Museum on the Gananoque waterfront, not far from the Gananoque Boat Line dock.

Speaking of which, the five-hour round trip to Boldt Castle on Gananoque Boat Line is a great excursion. You’ll need your passport for this one, as Boldt Castle is on the American side of the river.

Conceived by Waldorf Astoria hotel proprietor George Boldt as a sort of love letter in stone to his wife Louise, the half-finished mansion was abandoned in 1904 when Louise died unexpectedly. The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority took it over in 1977 and has been pouring money into restoring it ever since. You can take boat tours that just cruise by it without stopping, but it’s well worth a visit, just for the sweeping grand staircase alone.

If you prefer kayaks to tour boats, you can take a guided or self-guided paddling tour of the St. Lawrence River with the 1000 Islands Kayaking Company. On my last visit, my plans to kayak with them were derailed by rain, but company owner Scott Ewart kindly took a group of disappointed paddlers around some of the islands by motorboat instead.

Some of the 1,864 islands in the misnamed Thousand Islands chain are part of Thousand Islands National Park, and we checked out the floored oTENTiks you can rent if you’d like to sleep under canvas without the hassle of pitching your own tent.

Of course, there’s more to Gananoque than boats. For instance 1000 Islands Helicopter Tours offers scenic tours above the river, and the Thousand Islands Playhouse has a packed schedule of performances from May to October in two theatres. (I would put the theatre’s production of a musical called Million Dollar Quartet up against anything I’ve seen in Ottawa or Toronto.)

If you’re feeling peckish, the unprepossessing Maple Leaf Restaurant—which looks like it hasn’t changed much since about 1970—serves up great schnitzels and Czech beer. Oh, and speaking of beer, the Gananoque Brewing Company has thirst-quenching local brews on tap.

To extend your getaway on your way back to Ottawa, take a bit of a detour to the picture-perfect Chaffeys Locks on the Rideau Canal. There, you can rent bikes or kayaks, or book a pontoon-boat tour, through Rideau Tours, or stop by the newly renovated Opinicon resort for lunch or drinks.

If you go: Gananoque is about a 90-minute drive southwest of Ottawa. VIA Rail stops there once a day, each way, on trips between Ottawa and Toronto (but, be forewarned, the station is outside of town in what looks like the middle of a farm field).

Disclosure: I travelled to Gananoque as a guest of 1000 Islands Tourism, which neither reviewed nor approved this post.

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As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration.