Vaughan to Peterborough and the Kawarthas: the lift lock, the lakes and the cottage road

The Kawarthas, ninety minutes away

The Kawarthas are the nearer cottage country: closer than Muskoka, less expensive, with the Trent-Severn Waterway threading through a chain of lakes — Chemong, Buckhorn, Pigeon, Sturgeon, Stony — and a string of small towns on the water. Peterborough is their city, at the southern end, with a university, a lift lock that raises boats twenty metres in a water-filled tub, and a museum devoted to the canoe. From Vaughan it is a short road trip and a long relationship: the families who go once for the lock go every August for the cottage.

The Lift Lock and the Canoe Museum: the family day

The Peterborough Lift Lock, Lock 21 on the Trent-Severn Waterway, opened in 1904 and is still the highest hydraulic boat lift in the world; watching a cruiser rise twenty metres in one of its two chambers is the reason a Vaughan family with children between five and twelve books the day, and the visitor centre beside it explains the mechanism. Ten minutes away is the Canadian Canoe Museum, which reopened in a new building on the shore of Little Lake in 2024 with the world's largest collection of canoes and kayaks and a waterfront where the family can paddle one. Together with lunch on the city's Hunter Street or a walk in Jackson Park they are a full day, and the chauffeur moves the family between them in a Luxury SUV — the lock's visitor lot, the museum's, the restaurant's curb — while the parents are parents.

The Trent move-in

Trent University's campus sits on the Otonabee River north of the city, its residences spread along both banks, and its September move-in has the same shape as the Queen's one in the Kingston post: an assigned window, an unloading zone, a family and a residence load that fills a car twice. An Executive Sprinter from Thornhill or Woodbridge carries everything in one trip, the chauffeur meets the window, and the parents come home the same afternoon or after a night in the city. The Fleming College campuses in the city and in Lindsay are the same booking. Move-out in April reverses it.

The cottage road

North of Peterborough the roads fan out to the lakes: Highway 28 to Lakefield, Burleigh Falls and Stony Lake; County Road 23 to Buckhorn; Highway 36 to Bobcaygeon and Sturgeon Lake, with Fenelon Falls beyond. The cottage run from Vaughan — a family to a rented or owned cottage for a week, with luggage, groceries, a dog and a canoe on the roof — is a Sprinter's job, and it is booked as a one-way with a one-way return a week later. The chauffeur handles the last kilometres of cottage road that make the trip a chore for a family car, and the family arrives having done nothing but talk. Buckhorn's town dock, Bobcaygeon's lock and the Kawarthas tourism site are the reference points; the chauffeur takes the cottage's address and finds the private road.

The route from Vaughan

The 407 east to Highway 115 at its eastern end, the 115 north-east to Peterborough, and Highway 7 or the Parkway into the city — the routing estimate above ignores the 407 and the real-world time from most of Vaughan is ninety minutes. For the cottage road add forty-five minutes to Lakefield and an hour to Bobcaygeon; on a Friday in July the 115 is the cottage exodus and the chauffeur leaves early or late, as the family prefers, with the fare fixed either way.

The towns, for the day trip

Lakefield is the village on the Otonabee with the private school and the writer's houses (Margaret Laurence lived there; Susanna Moodie's Lakefield is a short drive away), a main street of cafés and the Lakefield Trail along the river; Bobcaygeon has its lock in the middle of town, the boardwalk, the ice cream and the Kawartha Dairy's home shop; Buckhorn has the lock, the marinas and the summer art festival; Fenelon Falls has its falls in the centre of town. A chauffeured family does one or two of these in an afternoon after the lock, with the vehicle waiting at each; it is the reason this trip is booked hourly rather than as a return.

Vehicles and loads

The family day is a Luxury SUV; the cottage week and the Trent move-in are a Sprinter — the vehicle with the bay for the coolers, the bins and the bicycle, and the roof for a canoe if arranged in advance. A group of six adults doing the Kawarthas' breweries and lake restaurants for a weekend books the Sprinter by the day with the chauffeur as the driver nobody has to be. Booster seats are $25 each and fitted before the pickup; for the cottage week they stay with the family, since the vehicle is not.

Costs and the case for the chauffeur

A ninety-minute drive is not the argument here; the loads and the days are. The cottage run with a full family, a week's groceries and a canoe is a two-car job or a rented van done as one Sprinter fare each way, shown in the booking engine before you book, with the 407 in it. The family day is a comfort purchase for a family of four and a saving for two families in a Sprinter; the Trent move-in prices like the Kingston one, one fare against two cars and a campus with no parking. The site says which is which.

Seasons

The lock operates through the navigation season from spring to fall and the lift is the show; the museum is all year; the cottage road is July and August with the Labour Day exodus its worst Sunday; the fall colours around Stony Lake and Burleigh Falls in early October are a drive Vaughan families take for its own sake. Winter is the Trent trip and the quiet city.

The family day, in order

A family of five from Concord: pickup at 8:15, the 407 to the 115, Peterborough by 9:45; the Lift Lock's visitor centre first, timed for a boat lockage — the chauffeur checks the day's traffic with the lock staff on arrival — then the walk along the canal to watch it from the top. The Canoe Museum at 11:30 with a paddle on Little Lake if the weather allows; lunch on Hunter Street at one; the drive to Lakefield at two thirty for the river trail and an ice cream; Burleigh Falls at four for the rocks and the water; home by half past six. Ten hours of hourly hire with the SUV waiting at each stop, tolls in, one number in the booking engine.

The Trent-Severn as a boat trip

The lock is the show but the Waterway is the ride: the Trent-Severn's Peterborough stretch has cruise boats that lock through the Lift Lock and the Otonabee's locks on a two-hour trip from the city's marina, and a family that has watched the lift from the platform in the morning rides it in the afternoon. The chauffeur drops at the marina and collects at the dock; the boat's schedule is the only fixed time in the day and it goes in the notes.

Fenelon Falls and Lindsay, the western Kawarthas

The Kawarthas' western half is reached from Vaughan by the 407 and Highway 35 rather than the 115: Lindsay with its main street, its farmers' market and the Academy Theatre's summer season; Fenelon Falls with the waterfall in the centre of town, the lock beside it and the Sturgeon Lake shore; Bobcaygeon between them. A Vaughan family with a cottage on Sturgeon or Cameron Lake books the transfer that way, and a chauffeured day trip does Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon and Buckhorn as a loop back to Peterborough and the 115 — a different day from the lift-lock one, and a summer favourite.

The cottage week, worked through

The rented cottage on Stony Lake is two adults, three children, a dog, a week's groceries bought in Vaughan because the cottage town's store is small, four bins of bedding and towels, three bicycles and a canoe. A family car does it in two trips or a roof box, a friend's van, and a Friday evening on the 115 in the exodus; the Sprinter does it in one trip at ten on Saturday morning with the bicycles in the bay, the canoe on the rack arranged at booking, the dog on the floor and the children at the tables. The fare is one number each way in the booking engine, and the return is booked the following Saturday; the family spends the week without a car and finds it does not miss one, because the cottage is the point.

Pickup notes

The 407 east from every Vaughan community to the 115 — Weston Road for Woodbridge, Jane for Maple, Dufferin for Thornhill; the toll is inside the fare. Tell us the lock or boat timing, the residence window for Trent, the cottage directions and the loads, the seats and the rack, and the chauffeur confirms the evening before.

Peterborough's own afternoon

The city is worth an hour on its own account: the Riverview Park and Zoo on the Otonabee north of the centre — a free municipal zoo with a miniature train that is the youngest child's favourite hour of the day; Jackson Park's ravine and the old railway trail; the Art Gallery of Peterborough on Little Lake beside the museum; and Hunter Street's cafés for the lunch. A chauffeured family adds the zoo to the lift-lock morning and the Canoe Museum, and the SUV waits at each.

What the chauffeur replaces on the cottage weekend

The alternative to the Sprinter is well known to every Vaughan family with a Kawartha cottage: a Friday departure at four that becomes a two-hour crawl to the 115, a second car for the bicycles and the dog, and a Sunday evening return in the exodus with the driver's week beginning already tired. The chauffeured transfer is a Saturday-morning departure with everyone in one vehicle, a Saturday return a week later after breakfast, and the two drives — the only parts of a cottage week that nobody enjoys — done by someone else. The Sprinter's page lists the bay and the rack; the booking engine shows the fare with the 407 inside it.

Booking it

Book an hourly day from your Vaughan address for the lock and the towns, a one-way for the cottage with the return date, or a Sprinter for the move-in with the residence window; tell us the loads, the seats, the canoe, and the private road, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Kawarthas trip