No ferry required: driving onto Scugog Island

The question comes up so often that the township's tourism office answers it in the first lines of its island page: Scugog Island is reached by a short drive across a causeway, no ferry required. The road leaves Port Perry's lakefront, runs low across the water and the reeds, and lands you on the island a few minutes later. From the end of the causeway to the hotel is the length of a song or two on the radio.

Why is there an island here at all?

Because in 1834 a mill owner at Lindsay, downstream, raised a dam and the water rose around ten feet, by the encyclopedia's account. Higher ground became islands. Most of them were later reconnected to the mainland as levels changed; Scugog stayed separate, kept that way by channels at its marshy south end. Four years after the dam went up, angry settlers whose farms had flooded tore it down with axes and pitchforks. The Board of Works rebuilt a lower dam with a lock in 1844. It is a short history with long consequences, and the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, whose wild rice beds were drowned by dams, carried the heaviest share of them.

What does the drive feel like?

In daylight, open: water on both sides, wide sky, cattails. In summer, the marsh is loud with birds and the lake is dotted with boats. In winter, the lake turns white and the ice-fishing huts appear. After dark it is a different road. Street lights end with the town, the island roads are rural and the signage is modest. Nothing dramatic, but if you are arriving for the first time after a late show in the city, take it slowly and trust the full address in the sat-nav, not the town name.

How far is everything?

By our routing model, the hotel is about 11 km and a quarter of an hour from Palmer Park on Port Perry's waterfront, ten minutes from the museum village further down Island Road, and eight minutes from the marina near the island's north end. Toronto is about 95 km away; Google's early-morning estimate from Union Station was just over an hour, our model's is around 80 minutes, and Scugog's tourism partners say an hour.

Is the island name worth knowing?

We like one of the two readings the encyclopedia offers: a Mississauga word meaning that waves leap over a canoe. Lake Scugog is shallow, and shallow lakes stir up quickly in wind. Stand on the causeway on a gusty October afternoon and you will see why someone might have named it that way.