While docked at the Port of Toronto, guests on board Viking Octantis get a grand view of the city skyline.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
The sleek white cruise ship stood out in Toronto’s nascent cruise ship dock. Amongst the dump trucks, diggers and enormous mounds of cement chunks on shore, amongst the ferries, tugboats and lake freighters that dock, the 665-foot-long Viking Octantis gleamed like a beacon. The Octantis is an expedition ship that normally sails in Antarctica and the Arctic. What was it doing in Toronto?
I looked into it. Starting in 2022, Viking Cruises gave its two expedition ships, Octantis and sister ship Polaris, a summer job: plying the Great Lakes from April through September.
“We made the strategic decision to come because it’s an undercruised, undervisited area,” Damon Stanwell-Smith, Viking’s head of science and sustainability, told me later. “There was a tangible sense that our guest demographic would be interested in the expeditionary approach to understanding it.”
But who would pay $8,495 (the starting rate for Viking’s eight-day sailings) to tour the Rust Belt and beyond? It seemed incredulous – I had a lot to learn about the preconceptions of exploring my own backyard.
Viking is not the only cruise line to take passengers around the largest freshwater ecosystem in the world where forest and Canadian shield views share scenic billing with canals, shipping lanes and industrial waterways. But Viking’s two ships ply these waters more frequently, about 30 times a season, and carry scientists that study the lakes.
Certainly, the Viking ships offer one of the more discerning on-board experiences on the Great Lakes. For starters, no one under 18 is allowed. There are no casinos or discos. Staterooms are roomy and as sleek as a boutique hotel – marble bathroom, fine bedding, 55-inch flat-screen TV, minibar, Nespresso coffee machine and free WiFi. The on-board restaurants are all fine dining – even the buffet skews high-end. The on-board Nordic spa is extensive and chic. None of these cost extra.
Eric Laignel/Supplied
The Nordic junior suite (top) and spa facilities onboard Viking Octantis.Supplied
All the luxury surprised me when I noticed the, well, not-so-glamorous ports, including stops at Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and Duluth, Minn., in Lake Superior; in Lake Michigan ports of call include Milwaukee, Wis., Chicago and Algoma, Mich.; in Lake Erie, passengers see Cleveland, Ohio, and Port Colborne, Ont. (or take buses to Niagara Falls); gliding along the Detroit River brings passengers to Detroit, before moving into Lake Huron where the small communities of Alpena and Mackinac Island, Mich., (with its 18 fudge shops) await. On longer itineraries, Viking ships sail into Georgian Bay and Ontario cottage country stopping at Killarney before navigating the North Channel right next door. Toronto is the only port in Lake Ontario.
I enjoyed my laid-back departure day. No rush to the airport or long security lines – Toronto’s port is about a 20-minute drive from my home. Once on board and unpacked, I wandered upstairs for lunch and the lifeboat drills – welcome Champagne cocktail already in hand.
A former U.S. Navy officer demonstrated how to wear the life jacket, which looked extremely large and included a neoprene hoodie for warmth. It was then that I began to realize that Viking Octantis was still in “expedition” mode on the Great Lakes, too.
On our eight-day cruise, one “expedition day” was planned at the birders’ paradise of Point Pelee National Park. The ship would bob offshore in Lake Erie and passengers could head in on rubber Zodiaks and sea kayaks or explore the shoreline in a military-grade special operations boat. Longer Viking Great Lakes cruises offer more of these adventurous days in Canadian waters – sometimes launching a six-seat minisubmarine.
It's a tight fit for Viking Octantis as it makes its way through the eight locks of the Welland Canal between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.Supplied
I’d been to Point Pelee before, but not like this. Arriving via the water and not the highway would give me a whole new perspective.
Alas, our Pelee day was cancelled owing to wind and high waves. Our one expedition day lost! I picked up the strong binoculars provided in each stateroom, lowered the picture window to enjoy the stiff breeze and scanned the shoreline for a look at least. I also wondered why the crew didn’t ferry passengers to the public dock at Leamington, Ont. – less than a 10-minute drive from Pelee’s front gates. But as one of the only Ontarians on board, I doubt anyone else knew it was doable.
We’d arrived that morning after an overnight run through the eight locks of the Welland Canal that connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. With only a foot of space on each side, the night was full of jolts and jiggles when the ship bumped the walls.
It was fascinating to experience the water locks and watch the long laker ships glide by. This was also when the “industrial chic” views began: Old, atmospheric flour mills, working factories and, in some ports, apartment-building-size mounds of sand and road salt amongst the forested and rocky shores.
Point Pelee National Park on Lake Erie in Southern Ontario.
Great Lakes cruise views often include 'industrial chic' views of working and empty factories, such as this former mill near Port Colborne, Ont.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
It was so unlike the exotic scenes many people expect during a cruise that I started asking passengers – almost all the 378 on board are American – why they’d booked passage in the Great Lakes. Many talked about how they didn’t want to take a long-haul flight for a holiday. But seeing Niagara Falls was often the main reason (and an included excursion for passengers).
“Niagara Falls was a bucket list for me,” Gloria Zakaras of Omaha, Neb., explained. “I was inundated by buckets of water! But all right, that’s part of it,” she laughed.
I joined the tour to the bottom of the Falls and got just as wet. Surprisingly, I was just as giddy though I’d done it before. Maybe it was time to re-examine my jaded view of this wonder of the world so close to home.
Halfway through the trip, I met Linda Uvehara, who calls Honolulu home.
“You already live in paradise,” I asked, “why are you in the Great Lakes?”
She smiled patiently (maybe I wasn’t the first person to ask her this) and listed all the new things she was seeing – the Lake Huron lighthouses, the history-making artifacts inside the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit, the 19th-century finery of the Grand Hotel on car-free Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan. Not to mention the island’s many candy shops: “Did you know there is more than one way to make fudge?” She was incredulous.
“As I get older, I just want to see more of this country and so the Great Lakes is part of that,” Uvehara said.
In addition to all the bucket-list ticking, Champagne drinking and fine dining – below decks, the ship’s resident scientists are doing some serious research in its dedicated lab. Sometimes guests can sign up as volunteers.
Visiting scientists join sailings as part of Viking’s Genomics at Sea Program – the permanent PCR-equipped lab allows for environmental genetic sequencing (eDNA) – where researchers monitor the environmental impact of phytoplankton and can share results in real-time. Resident scientists work with two U.S.-based Great Lakes research groups, and the U.S. National Weather Service has Polaris and Octantis launch weather balloons regularly.
Stanwell-Smith is hoping for more Canadian-based research projects. In May, during a port stop in Detroit, Stanwell-Smith gave some scientists who attended the International Association of Great Lakes Research conference in next door Windsor, Ont., a tour of the ship’s lab. Talks are continuing, Viking reports.
Milwaukee was my last stop, and the ship docked for two nights in a busy working port with room for 16 cargo ships. A shuttle bus took passengers through the heavy cranes, rail lines and piles of aggregate to a lively local market. When I set out to wander the downtown core – I was gobsmacked by the well-kept art deco, Renaissance and Romanesque revival buildings.
The Bronze Fonz waits for visitors along the RiverWalk in Milwaukee.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
I found the Bronze Fonz, a thumbs-up, life-size statue of Henry Winkler’s Happy Days character, and took a selfie. Milwaukee enchanted me, it was the sleeper hit of the cruise.
When we left the ship early the next morning, the sun rose prettily over the salt pile and I admired an ethereal pink and purple glow on the peeling paint of nearby derricks.
It was a reminder that cruises through the natural beauty of the Great Lakes will always be packaged with the economic boom and bust of industry. And that’s not something you can find just anywhere.
If you go
Viking’s Great Lakes cruises run between eight to 17 days and start at $8,495 a person, double occupancy. Travellers who want to try out the expedition equipment should book itineraries that spend more time in Canadian waters. An old U.S. marine law means Viking’s expedition boats cannot be launched with passengers in American waters. vikingcruisescanada.com/expeditions
The writer travelled as a guest of Viking. It did not review or approve the article before publication.
