Muskoka Steamships & Discovery Centre is the beating heart of Gravenhurst’s waterfront, and home to the most storied fleet in cottage country. Its crown jewel is the RMS Segwun: built in Glasgow in 1887, shipped across the Atlantic in pieces and reassembled in Gravenhurst, she began life as the paddle steamer Nipissing II, carrying passengers, freight and mail around the lakes. Rebuilt and renamed Segwun — Ojibwe for “springtime” — in 1925, she is now North America’s oldest operating steamship and the only steam-driven Royal Mail Ship still sailing anywhere in the world. Mail dropped in her onboard box still leaves with her own postmark. Beside her sails the Wenonah II, a 216-passenger replica in 1907 style offering sightseeing, lunch, dinner and High Tea cruises — including the famous Millionaire’s Row sailing past the great summer estates, named a Canadian Signature Experience. The fleet’s third vessel, the 1915 steam yacht Wanda III, has been converted to electric power and relaunched after two decades away.
On shore, the Discovery Centre keeps the story going all year round. Its Grace & Speed Boathouse floats a remarkable in-water collection of antique wooden boats; the award-winning Misko-Aki exhibit traces more than 10,000 years of Indigenous presence in Muskoka; a 96-foot touchscreen “aquarium” explores the watershed; and a 4,000-square-foot KidZone packs in hands-on STEAM fun. Ships sail from late May to mid-October; the Centre never closes for the season.