1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (122 page)

Yoga is just one of the resort’s many offerings.

W
HERE
: 150 miles/241 km north of Toronto. Tel 800-571-8818 or 416-245-5606 (winter), 705-389-2171 (summer);
www.manitou-online.com
.
Cost:
from US$517/C$580, all inclusive.
When:
mid-May–mid-Oct.
B
EST TIME
: mid-July–early Aug for the Festival of the Sound at nearby Parry Sound (
www.festivalofthesound.ca
).

The Greening of the Canadian Shield

Ontario

Muskoka is so rocky that, until recently, even golf greens had trouble taking root. Just two hours north of Toronto, Muskoka sits at the southern edge of the Canadian Shield, the vast granite plateau that Ice Age
glaciers scraped clean of topsoil, exposing the underlying stone. Too rocky to farm, the Muskoka region boomed as a resort destination beginning in the 1880s and ’90s, when Gilded Age millionaires journeyed to the area’s lakes (the region boasts over 1,600) for summer lakeside holidays. The Muskoka region grew famous for its lovely scenery, hardwood forests, boating, and resort living—but not for golf. With a couple of exceptions, the ubiquitous granite outcrops made building golf courses a difficult and expensive proposition.

That changed in 1990 with the opening of Deerhurst Highlands Golf Course. Rather than view the exposed granite as an obstacle, course architects Robert Cupp and Thomas McBroom embraced it. The result is a highly acclaimed and challenging course that uses rock ledges, cliffs, walls, and outcrops, adding a strategic and aesthetic element to the play. Suddenly, Muskoka took off as a golfing destination, and a bevy of new courses were designed to make the most of the distinctive landscape. Today, Muskoka is one of Canada’s top golfing destinations, and its trademark granite is a selling point—in fact, one of the area’s most renowned courses, named 2004’s Best New Course in Canada, is simply called The Rock. Choose among the region’s more than 20 golf courses, or contact the Muskoka Golf Trail, which designs mix-and-match golf and resort packages.

While championship golf may be relatively new to Muskoka, world-class resorts aren’t. Deerhurst is one of Muskoka’s earliest, originally built in 1896, and remains one of the region’s top destinations. After a recent top-to-toe renovation and expansion, the resort is more stunning than ever. Spread across 800 acres of woodlands and waterfront, it offers a near-endless array of diversions, facilities, and amenities, from boating and swimming to horseback riding, hiking, and cross-country skiing in winter. Its Aveda Spa offers an extensive selection of soothing treatments in case you overdo it.

Deerhurst is also famed for its nightly song-and-dance stage show—a Muskoka tradition for the last two decades. Singer Shania Twain grew up hereabouts and got her start at the resort (she was also married here). She stops by the show when she’s back in Muskoka.

W
HERE
: 140 miles/225 km north of Toronto.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-267-9700 or 705-689-0660;
www.discovermuskoka.ca
.
D
EERHURST
R
ESORT AND
H
IGHLANDS
G
OLF
C
OURSE
: Tel 800-461-4393 or 705-789-6411;
www.deerhurstresort.com
.
Cost:
from US$88/C$99 (off-peak), US$240/C$269 (peak); greens fees from US$56/C$65.
When:
resort, year-round; golf, May–Oct.
T
HE
R
OCK
: Minett. Tel 866-765-ROCK or 705-765-7625;
www.therockgolf.com
.
Cost:
greens fees from US$46/C$50 (off-peak), from US$151/C$170 (peak).
When:
May–Oct.
M
USKOKA
G
OLF
T
RAIL
: Tel 866-440-1087 or 905-755-0999;
www.muskokagolftrail.ca
.
B
EST TIMES
: July–Sept for weather. The Huntsville Festival of the Arts (
www.huntsvillefestival.on.ca
) is year-round, but July is the highlight, with events almost nightly.

A Thunderous Beauty

Ontario and New York State

“It would be more impressive if it flowed the other way,” Oscar Wilde supposedly quipped of Niagara Falls, revealing a sangfroid that few can muster when viewing the vast and thundering falls in the Niagara River,
by volume the largest waterfalls in North America. Straddling the U.S.–Canada border, Niagara Falls draws water from four of the five Great Lakes and flings it down twenty stories at the rate of 42 million gallons a minute. Almost a mile wide in total, the falls are divided by islands into three sections: the 1,060-foot American Falls, which includes a small section called Bridal Veil Falls, and the larger, 2,600-foot Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.

Niagara Falls are the most powerful waterfalls in North America.

Western society first became aware of the falls in 1678 when Jesuit missionary Louis Hennepin grew curious about the roar he heard in the distance and followed it to its source, writing Niagara’s first tourist account. Almost three centuries later, Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten headed this way in the falls’ namesake film, in the process establishing the falls as an iconic honeymoon destination.

Although both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the falls are well worth visiting, the best views, including nighttime illumination, are from the beautifully manicured flower gardens that line the Canadian side. However, to get up-close-and-personal with the falls, visit Niagara Falls State Park in New York, where there are several locations, including Prospect Point, Luna Island, Terrapin Point, and the Three Sisters Islands, that allow visitors to stand within a few feet of the raging rapids and at the brink of the falls.

A classic way to view Niagara Falls is from aboard the
Maid of the Mist,
a sturdy 600-passenger boat that’s the tenth in a same-name line of craft since 1846, safely taking passengers right into the maelstrom at the base of Horseshoe Falls. You’ll be very glad of the plastic raincoats they issue at boarding—they only augment the school-trip atmosphere, and let you get a little wet anyway.

For a different though still drenching view, take the Journey Behind the Falls tour, on the Canadian side, which descends via elevator through 150 feet of rock to a series of man-made tunnels that provide a view from behind the cascading water. On the U.S. side, the Cave of the Winds tour leads visitors to the base of the Bridal Veil Falls. Donning souvenir raincoat and sandals, walk along a series of decks and stairs to the Hurricane Deck, just 20 feet from the base of the pounding waters. Dry out on the 30-passenger
Flight of Angels
tethered helium balloon, which takes you up 400 feet for a ten-minute bird’s-eye view of the majesty below.

The Canadian side of the falls offers better facilities—nightclubs, restaurants, upscale hotels, and an IMAX theater for the next-best experience of the falls’ wonder. But the primary man-made attraction here is the 2.5-million-square-foot Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort, which in addition to gaming offers very good dining, from deli to fancy venues meant to pamper high rollers, and lovely rooms with the best views of the falls.

W
HERE
: 82 miles/132 km southeast of Toronto.
Ontario visitor info:
Tel 800-563-2557 or 905-356-6061;
www.niagarafallstourism.com
.
New York visitor info:
Tel 800-338-7890 or 716-282-8992;
www.niagara-usa.com
.
M
AID OF
THE
M
IST
: Tel 905-358-5781 (Ontario), 716-284-8897 (New York);
www.maidofthemist.com
.
When:
Apr–Oct.
J
OURNEY
B
EHIND
THE
F
ALLS
: Tel 905-354-1551;
www.niagaraparks.com
.
C
AVE OF
THE
W
INDS
: Goat Island. Tel 716-278-1730;
www.niagarafallsstatepark.com
.
When:
May–Oct.
F
LIGHT OF
A
NGELS
: Tel 716-278-0824;
www.flightoftheangels.net
.
When:
May–Oct.
N
IAGARA
F
ALLSVIEW
C
ASINO
R
ESORT
: Tel 888-325-5788 or 905-374-6928;
www.discoverniagara.com/fallsviewcasino
.
Cost:
from US$115/C$129.
B
EST TIMES
: April–Nov for Niagara-on-the-Lake’s annual Shaw Festival (see below); mid-May–Aug for Fireworks Fri and Sun at 10
P.M
.; Nov–early Jan for winter Festival of Lights.

An Arts Festival in Wine Country

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

Leave the thunder of Niagara Falls behind you (see p. 998), and follow the road that leads to an entirely different world, far from the conga line of tour buses and the big business of honeymooning. Just north of the falls is
the lovely little 19th-century town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, one of the prettiest in Canada and all these years happily existing in the shadow of its world-famous neighbor.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to the acclaimed Shaw Festival, one of the largest and most successful theater festivals in North America. John Simon, writing in
New York
magazine, called it “the best repertory theater on the continent.” Dedicated to presenting the works of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries and new works about Shaw’s life, the festival fills three theaters with a dozen or more plays each season, from early April to November.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is filled with elegant historic homes (many now exclusive B&Bs), Victorian storefronts, wine shops, beautiful parks and gardens, and the Prince of Wales Hotel and Spa, a grand and beautifully restored Victorian hotel that presides over the center of town. Exuding the sophistication and refinement of a bygone era (replete with lovely tea room), it also promises all the comforts of the 21st century, with lavishly decorated rooms and excellent haute French dining in the Escabèche Restaurant.

More than a festival town, Niagara-on-the-Lake is also, along with the neighboring communities of St. Catharines, Jordan, and Vineland, at the heart of the Niagara wine region. The Niagara Peninsula, a neck of land that separates Lake Erie from Lake Ontario, is the largest viticultural area in Canada, accounting for 80 percent of Canada’s grape-growing volume. This area shares the same latitude as Tuscany and the border area of France and Spain, and the microclimate of the Niagara Peninsula further adds to its wine-growing potential, as its position between two huge bodies of water moderates extremes in both winter and summer temperatures. More than 60 classic European grape varieties are now grown in Ontario, but it’s ice wine—a honey-sweet dessert wine made after freezing temperatures concentrate the sugars in grapes purposefully left to hang on the vine—that is the region’s most sought-after.

The Niagara Peninsula is home to more than 60 wineries. Most are open year-round and welcome visitors with tasting rooms and winery tours, and a growing number promise an excellent meal as well. Top wineries to visit
include Peller Estates; Inniskillin Wines (whose barn may—or may not—have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright); Château des Charmes; and Vineland Estates Winery, housed on a former Mennonite homestead.

One of Ontario’s top country hotels, the Inn on the Twenty, can be found in the small town of Jordan and is a welcoming and convenient base for touring the wine country. The inn’s structure was once a sugar warehouse; a stylish renovation has kept the vintage detail while infusing the suites and facilities with lots of charm—and it includes a spa with plenty of treatments for both men and women. Foodies come for the reputation of the regional cuisine and fine wines found in the inn’s intimate dining room.

W
HERE
: 80 miles/128 km south of Toronto.
Visitor info:
Tel 905-468-1950,
www.niagaraonthelake.com
.
G
EORGE
B
ERNARD
S
HAW
F
ESTIVAL
: Tel 800-511-7429 or 905-468-2172;
www.shawfest.com
Cost:
tickets from US$37/C$42.
When:
Apr–Nov.
P
RINCE OF
W
ALES
H
OTEL
: Tel 888-669-5566 or 905-468-3246;
www.vintageinns.com
.
Cost:
from US$254/C$285; dinner at Escabèche US$45/C$50.
W
INE
C
OUNCIL OF
O
NTARIO
: Tel 905-684-8070;
www.winesofontario.org
.
I
NN ON
THE
T
WENTY
: Tel 800-701-8074 or 905-562-5336;
www.innonthetwenty.com
.
Costs:
from US$151/C$169 (off-peak), from US$290/C$325 (peak); dinner US$36/C$40.
B
EST TIMES
: mid-Jan for the Niagara Icewine Festival (
www.grapeandwine.com
); Sept for the Niagara Wine Festival.