This month's museum pick...

Canadian Canoe Museum at Peterborough

By Patrick Totty

Since we’re so water-oriented this month, here’s an offbeat museum you can barge in on!

One of the crucial waterways in Canadian history was the Trent-Severn Waterway in western Ontario. It wended its way from Port Severn, near the Georgian Bay arm of Lake Huron, southeastward through the interconnected Kawartha Lakes, to Peterborough (at the midway point) and on finally to Kingston, which lies at the beginning of the Thousand Islands section of the St. Lawrence River.

Trent-Severn is still navigable, though these days the heaviest traffic it bears is cruise boats and barges that take visitors on lazy five-day excursions from its midpoint at Peterborough to either end of the waterway.

While you’re making ready for your waterway expedition, be sure to visit the Canadian Canoe Museum at Peterborough. The museum, housed at Trent University, houses a collection of 550 watercraft, including canoes and kayaks, the largest of its kind in the world. Specimens range from a 40-foot-long, ocean-going canoe built by the Nootka Indians of the Pacific Northwest to a Quechaun reed boat used on Lake Titicaca in South America, and the canoe “Orellana” used to paddle the Amazon.

The museum also features a large collection of scale models, paddles, snowshoes, moccasins, and other canoe-related artifacts.