Vaughan to Gravenhurst: the wharf, the steamship and the gateway to Muskoka

The gateway town

Gravenhurst is where Muskoka begins — the first town north of the Severn on Highway 11, on the southern bay of Lake Muskoka, with the Muskoka Wharf as its front door: a waterfront of boardwalks, restaurants, a hotel and the dock where the RMS Segwun, North America's oldest operating steamship, launched in 1887, leaves for its cruises of the lake. Beside the wharf the Muskoka Discovery Centre keeps the region's boats — the mahogany launches, the steamships' story, the cottage culture — and up the hill the town has the Opera House, Bethune Memorial House and Gull Lake Park, where a Sunday evening in summer is a concert from a barge on the water. For Vaughan it is the short Muskoka day, and the one couples book for the boat.

The Segwun and the Wenonah

The Segwun and its modern companion, the Wenonah II, run cruises of one to four hours from the Muskoka Wharf through the summer and fall: a two-hour afternoon cruise of the southern lake, a lunch or dinner cruise, and the long Millionaires' Row cruise past the boathouses and estates of the lake's old families. The sailings are timed and booked ahead, and a chauffeured day from Vaughan is built around one: a Premium Sedan or SUV collects a couple in Thornhill at ten, the wharf by noon, lunch on the boardwalk, the two o'clock cruise, the Discovery Centre after, dinner at the wharf, home by nine. Families do the same with the Segwun's shorter sailing and the museum's hands-on boat hall; the boat is the day's fixed time and goes in the booking notes.

The Discovery Centre and Bethune House

The Muskoka Discovery Centre at the wharf is the region's museum — the boats in the water and on the floor, the story of the steamships and the resorts, a children's area with a boat-building station — and it is an hour and a half that a rainy day depends on. Bethune Memorial House, a Parks Canada site up the hill on John Street, is the birthplace of Dr. Norman Bethune, the surgeon whose work in China made him a name known to every Chinese visitor in the group; it is a small, well-done museum and the reason a Vaughan family with relatives visiting from China books Gravenhurst rather than Bracebridge. The chauffeur drops at both doors.

Music on the Barge

On Sunday evenings from June to August the town runs free concerts from the barge on Gull Lake — a bandstand on the water, the crowd on the lawn of Gull Lake Park, the sun going down behind the lake — and a Vaughan couple or a family books a Sunday that ends with it: the wharf in the afternoon, a picnic on the lawn at seven, the concert, and the drive home in the dark. It is the town's signature evening and it costs nothing; the Gravenhurst tourism pages list the season.

The Opera House and the main street

Gravenhurst's Opera House is a 1901 theatre on the main street with a summer season of plays and year-round concerts — the evening booking for a couple at one of the town's resorts — and Muskoka Road, the main street, has the shops and the restaurants above the wharf. Taboo Muskoka, the resort on the lake north of town, is the golf-and-spa weekend, booked as a return pair or with the vehicle staying for the boat and the town.

The cottage transfer

Lake Muskoka's south end — Muskoka Bay, the Gravenhurst shore, the islands reached by water taxi from the wharf — is Gravenhurst's cottage country, and the transfer from Vaughan is the Sprinter booking described on the Muskoka route page: the family, the luggage, the coolers and the canoe in one trip, the cottage's directions rather than its address, the return a week later. For island cottages the chauffeur drops at the marina or the wharf's water-taxi dock at the arranged time; the family's week begins on the water.

The route

The 400 north to Barrie and Highway 11 north across the Severn to Gravenhurst's exits — an hour and three-quarters from Maple on a clear morning, the divided highway the whole way. The town's wharf is five minutes from the highway on Bay Street; the Segwun's dock, the Discovery Centre and the wharf's hotel share a lot that a chauffeured vehicle drops at and leaves.

Which vehicle

A Premium Sedan for a couple's cruise day; a Luxury SUV for a family with boosters at $25 each; a Sprinter for grandparents-included, for the visiting relatives who came for Bethune House, and for the cottage transfer. A stretch limousine is booked once a summer for a proposal on the Segwun's dinner cruise; the wharf's forecourt takes it.

What the fare replaces

Three and a half hours of the 400 and 11 in a day and the wharf's summer lots; more to the point, for a couple, a day on a steamship with wine at lunch and a drive home that nobody has to be sober for. The fare is one number in the booking engine — hourly for the day, a one-way each way for the cottage, a return pair for a resort weekend — and the site is plain that for two people it is a comfort choice and for a Sprinter of eight it is a saving.

Seasons

The steamships sail from June to October, with the fall-colour cruises in early October the most-booked; Music on the Barge is Sundays in June, July and August; the Discovery Centre and Bethune House are the rainy-day and shoulder-season bookings; winter is a quiet town on a plowed highway and the Opera House's concerts. The cottage transfers run from May long weekend to Thanksgiving.

A steamship day for two, in order

A couple from Kleinburg in the first week of October: the Premium Sedan at 9:30, the 400 north with the colours beginning past Barrie, the Muskoka Wharf by 11:30; the Discovery Centre for an hour; lunch on the boardwalk at the wharf; the Segwun's afternoon fall-colour sailing at two — booked in August, because the October sailings sell out — two hours on the lake past the boathouses with the hills in colour; the wharf's hotel bar after; dinner at the wharf at six; the chauffeur at the dock at eight, home by ten. Twelve hours of hourly hire, one number in the booking engine, and wine at lunch and dinner for both of them.

The family version

A family of five from Woodbridge on a Saturday in July: the Luxury SUV at 8:30 with boosters, the wharf by 10:30; the Discovery Centre's boat hall first, because the children can climb into the boats; the Segwun's one-hour sailing at noon; lunch at the wharf; Gull Lake Park's beach at two thirty for a swim; Bethune House at four for the grandparents; and, if it is a Sunday, the picnic on the lawn and Music on the Barge at seven thirty, the drive home in the dark at nine. The chauffeur moves the SUV between the wharf, the park and John Street, which are five minutes apart and would otherwise be three parking hunts.

The wharf as a base for the lakes

The Muskoka Wharf is also the southern end of the big-lake boat network: the Segwun's long cruise reaches Millionaires' Row on Lake Muskoka's east shore, water taxis from the wharf serve the island cottages of the southern lake, and Muskoka Road 169 leaves the town for Bala and the west shore, which the Port Carling and Lake Rosseau post covers. A group that wants the lakes without a cottage books Gravenhurst as the base: the wharf hotel, the boats, the drive up 169 to Bala and the cranberry marsh, and home.

Taboo and the golf weekend

Taboo Muskoka, the resort on the lake north of the town, is the golf-and-spa weekend from Vaughan — a course rated among the province's best, a lakefront lodge, a spa — and a couple or a foursome books it as a return pair or, for a foursome that wants the town and the boat as well, with the vehicle staying; the Executive Sprinter carries four golfers and their bags with room to spare.

Pickup notes

The 400 for every Vaughan community — Maple and the VMC are on it, Woodbridge joins at Major Mackenzie, Thornhill crosses on Highway 7 — then Highway 11 to Gravenhurst's exits and Bay Street to the wharf. Give us the sailing, the seats, the resort if it is a weekend and the water taxi if it is a cottage, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

The Opera House evening and the resort couple

A couple at Taboo or the wharf hotel books the Gravenhurst Opera House — the 1901 theatre on the main street with its summer play season and its year-round concerts — as the evening of a resort weekend, with the chauffeur collecting from the resort at six, dinner on the main street, the performance, and the drive back to the resort at eleven; it is the version of the trip where the vehicle staying earns its daily rate, because a resort twenty minutes from the town is a resort without an evening otherwise. The Opera House posts its season in spring.

Sagamo Park and the wharf's summer

Beside the Discovery Centre the wharf's Sagamo Park runs the summer's outdoor concerts and the Saturday farmers' market in Muskoka Wharf Square; the boardwalk's restaurants have terraces on the bay; and the wharf hotel's forecourt is the drop for all of it. A family that has done the boat and the museum finds the afternoon takes care of itself on the boardwalk, and the chauffeur, in the wharf lot, has nowhere to be until the family does.

Booking it

Book an hourly day from your Vaughan address with the cruise sailing in the notes, a return pair for Taboo or the wharf hotel, or a one-way for the cottage with the return date; tell us the seats, the loads and the water taxi if any, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Gravenhurst day