Dan Rubinstein paddleboards on the Trent-Severn Waterway.Lisa Gregoire/The Globe and Mail
We’ve been on the water for less than an hour but, after my inadvertent 360 in the middle of the river and my wife Lisa’s swift recalibration at the helm, it’s already apparent that my better half is a superior skipper.
“I’m a Maritimer,” she proclaims, commandeering the bridge and relegating me to rope and cabin boy responsibilities. “Now go swab the deck.”
It’s our first day of houseboating on the Trent-Severn Waterway, a national historic site about 90 minutes northeast of Toronto in Ontario’s lake and river bejewelled Kawarthas region. This year, the European company Le Boat’s sleek, seafaring cabins, which already ply the Rideau Canal, are making their maiden voyages on this 386-km system of rivers, lakes and canals.
Two Le Boat houseboats docked at Beveridge Locks, along Tay River, near Lower Rideau Lake, Ont.Holger Leue/Supplied
The airy, light-filled houseboats are nothing like their boxy forerunners from decades past. Picture a compact modern condo with a pair of snug bedrooms, two ensuite bathrooms (complete with showers), a full kitchen and a rooftop patio. In other words, we weren’t exactly roughing it on the Trent-Severn.
Built in stages starting in 1833, the water link between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron wasn’t fully open until 1920 – too late for military or commercial use, but perfectly situated for an upsurge in pleasure boating. As an advocate for the healing properties of aquatic environments, it was my duty to investigate.
Also, even though we’re neophyte boaters more accustomed to paddling, our 19-year-old daughter Maggie was keen on a trip with more creature comforts than our usual camping holidays, and since it’s a rare treat to travel with one’s newly adult offspring, we dove into the opportunity to try something new.
Our four-night Trent-Severn itinerary called for a series of stops in small-town shops, restaurants and galleries. But early in the voyage, that ambitious plan went out the window and we discovered the joy of slow boating.
Frankford Lock Station on the Trent-Severn Waterway.Supplied
As our 11.5-metre-long vessel started rising four metres up Lock 24, a couple of kilometres north of Peterborough, we were given some unexpected news.
“Sorry, folks – you’re not going to make it through the next lock today,” announced Ryan Johnson, a Parks Canada lockmaster, peering down at us from the upstream gate. Locks close at 3:30 p.m. on weekdays in early June, so although it was still mid-afternoon, we were stranded here for the night.
Lisa masterfully pilots us out of the chamber after the gate swings open and uses the thrusters to sidle over to the portside wall. A lock operator helps us tie bow and stern lines onto metal cleats, then tells us about the best swimming spot nearby on the Otonabee River, where a dam and engineered channel, completed in 1898, created the island on which we’re now moored.
After a rainy, blustery morning, the sun has burst free. We go for a walk past farm fields and wildflowers on a trail along the shore, then head back to a small beach near the bottom of the island, where Maggie and I wade into the river and Lisa decamps with her book to a picnic table in the shade.
All Le Boat cruisers come with a fully equipped kitchen.Delphia / Cyril Bruneau/Supplied
Splashing, catching rides on the current and watching turtles kerplunk into the shallows with my teen is an experience I’ll savour. But it’s also a blast to head back to our boat, grab drinks from the fridge and join our next-slip neighbours on their upper deck. And it’s heavenly, later that evening, on our top deck, to grill asparagus and sausage and sit down to a family dinner as the light fades over the hills to the west.
“There are always going to be glitches on the water,” Roger Goldstone had said during cocktail hour aboard the trawler we’re parked beside. “But then you stop in a beautiful place, go for a swim and crack a cold one. That’s what makes boating worth it.”
Our Trent-Severn expedition began at a marina south of Peterborough, where we were taught how to manoeuvre the boat and manage its onboard systems. By late afternoon of our first day, we were tied up at a lock across Little Lake from downtown Peterborough, a short walk from the recently relocated Canadian Canoe Museum.
The cedar-and-steel landmark building houses the world’s largest collection of canoes, kayaks and paddle craft, more than 600 in total. “That’s Farley Mowat’s sailing canoe, and that was one of Gordon Lightfoot’s,” curator Jeremy Ward noted as we stepped into the cavernous collection hall. “Every canoe has a story, and we relate to one another through story.”
For supper, we ambled a few blocks to the Ashburnham Ale House. One of the joys of canal travel is that you’re never far from urban amenities. By amenities, I mean house-smoked ribs and blackened trout salad with chevre.
The next morning it’s raining, but by the time we reach the Peterborough Lift Lock, the clouds are beginning to dissipate, defying a stormy forecast and reminding me that rolling with the weather, just like slowing down and serendipitous camaraderie, is intrinsic to boating. (Later, while ascending Lock 26, operator Aaron Beverley will grab his guitar and serenade the rising boats with a country song. “I just try to make everybody’s day,” he shrugs after we applaud.)
Motoring into a tub of water that will lift us nearly 20 metres straight up the world’s highest hydraulic boat elevator is somewhat unnerving, but Parks Canada staff smoothly guide us into position, and soon we’re topside, cruising past the modernist, circa 1960s campus of Trent University, en route to our night at Lock 24.
On the third day, following a pit stop in the pretty village of Lakefield (supermarket, bakery, liquor store, marina: all the essentials), we continue north into a string of lakes. It’s windy and wavy on the open water, but Lisa is steady at the wheel and I pull out the binoculars and nautical charts to help her navigate a rocky passage that’s named, we thankfully learn later, Hells Gate.
At Burleigh Falls, we dock below the lock, a canyonlike cut through the Canadian Shield that connects two lakes. I hop onto a SUP and paddle to the base of the falls, nosing my board into a cascade of whitewater and circling back for some laps on nature’s everlasting treadmill.
It’s our last night before turning around, and after dinner at the historic Burleigh Falls Inn, I go for a moonlit swim off the back of the boat. It’s misty and quiet. Cloaked in darkness, the tree-lined lock chamber looks like a portal to an ancient world. Houseboats blur the boundaries between indulgence and simplicity, and waterways like the Trent-Severn shrink the distance between past and present.
Houseboating 101
Le Boat vessels move like big, slow cars and are easy to drive and park. You can cruise from point to point without the need to pack up every morning (or even wake up the teenager). Rentals start at about $3,750 in peak season for seven nights for a boat that sleeps five, and about $2,800 for the same boat during the shoulder season. You pay only for the amount of fuel used, typically half a tank (around $225). For trips longer than four nights, the grey and black water tanks should be pumped out and the 600-litre water tank replenished mid-voyage at a full-service marina (around $50). Other extras include bike and kayak rental and $100 to bring your dog on board. For more, visit leboat.ca.
The writer was a guest of Le Boat and Peterborough & the Kawarthas Tourism. They did not review or approve the story.