Thirty Thousand Islands

No cars have been allowed on this Lake Huron island since 1898, horse-drawn carriages and bicycles fill in instead, a genuine step back into the 19th century the moment you step off the ferry. The Grand Hotel's porch, the longest in the world, has hosted five sitting US presidents, while Fort Mackinac's restored ramparts tell the island's earlier military history. Fudge shops line the main street in numbers that have become something of a local joke, and a round on one of the island's golf courses is played, necessarily, without a golf cart in sight.

No cars have been allowed on this Lake Huron island since 1898, horse-drawn carriages and bicycles fill in instead, a genuine step back into the 19th century the moment you step off the ferry. The Grand Hotel's porch, the longest in the world, has hosted five sitting US presidents, while Fort Mackinac's restored ramparts tell the island's earlier military history. Fudge shops line the main street in numbers that have become something of a local joke, and a round on one of the island's golf courses is played, necessarily, without a golf cart in sight.

A tiny fishing village wedged between Georgian Bay and the white quartzite peaks of the La Cloche range, painted repeatedly by Canada's Group of Seven for the improbable turquoise of its lakes. Killarney Provincial Park's granite ridges and clear water draw paddlers and hikers in equal number, while the village's own Herbert Fisheries, a takeout shack on the water, is something of a rite of passage for boaters passing through. A short but memorable stop between two of Ontario's great cruising grounds.

The gateway to Manitoulin, the largest freshwater island on earth, Little Current's swing bridge is the only road link across the North Channel and a genuine local spectacle when it opens for passing boats. Anishinaabe communities on the island, among them Wikwemikong, keep powwow traditions and craft markets very much alive, while a round of golf or a hike up the Cup and Saucer Trail's cliffs both reward the effort. A relaxed harbor town at the edge of a genuinely singular island.

Midland sits at the edge of Georgian Bay's Thirty Thousand Islands, but its real draw is inland, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, a painstaking reconstruction of the Jesuit mission built here in 1639, tells one of the earliest and most consequential chapters of contact between European settlers and the Wendat people. Ospreys and herons nest along the bay's granite islets, while a round at one of the area's golf courses and a swim off one of its sand beaches round out the visit. A history lesson with genuinely beautiful water on either side of it.

Thirty thousand granite islands scatter across Georgian Bay's eastern shore, a landscape the Group of Seven made famous in Canadian painting, before the route narrows into the locks and canals that link the upper Great Lakes to Ontario and Erie below. Ospreys and loons work the bay's quieter channels, while the transition from wilderness to working canal happens within the space of a single day's sailing. A genuinely varied stretch of Canada's inland waters.

Canada's largest city stacks a genuinely global dining scene, drawn from one of the most diverse populations on the continent, beneath the CN Tower's needle-thin silhouette. The Toronto Islands, a short ferry from the financial district, offer sand beaches and quiet bike paths within full view of the skyline, while the eastern beaches and Rouge National Urban Park shelter a surprising range of migratory birds for a city this size. A round of golf at one of the city's storied courses rounds out a stop that rewards a proper wander through Kensington Market or the distillery district. Big-city energy, with the lake right at its edge.