Gananoque ON Ontario Canada
Frequently Asked Questions
At the edge of downtown, on the redeveloped waterfront. The riverside promenade, Confederation Park, the marina docks and the terraces facing the islands all start at the gangway.
Everything is walkable. The town has about 5,000 residents, and the waterfront, the museums and the residential streets of Victorian houses are minutes apart.
The boat trip among the Thousand Islands is the highlight. Add one of the two small museums, each under an hour, and a stroll through the Victorian streets.
More than 1,800, by the local rule that a proper island must have at least one tree. They are pink granite outcrops topped with pines, between the Canadian and American shores.
A mansion begun in 1900 on Heart Island, on the American side, by hotel magnate George Boldt for his wife Louise. When she died in 1904 he stopped the work overnight and never set foot there again.
Yes. Heart Island is an official US port of entry: without a valid passport you cannot land. Many passengers simply admire it from the water, which is enough to grasp its romantic excess.
The famous Millionaires' Row with its extravagant summer houses, lighthouses perched on rocks barely bigger than themselves, and private bridges linking twin islets. Local skippers supply the stories.
The Arthur Child Heritage Museum, tracing the region from First Nations to Prohibition rum-runners, and the Thousand Islands Boat Museum on the waterfront, devoted to varnished wooden craft, with restoration workshops on view.
A legacy of 19th-century industrialists who made fortunes in the mills and factories where the Gananoque River meets the St. Lawrence. Turrets, ornate verandas and tended gardens make the walk worthwhile on their own.
Gananoque's theatre, whose two venues occupy former waterfront buildings, one a converted canoe clubhouse. Catching a performance rarely fits a port call, but the terrace over the water is worth a look at any hour.
