There’s more to the Thousand Islands than just the Islands
A quick guide to exploring Gananoque and the Thousand Islands with Dave Baker
Gananoque and the Thousand Islands is a fantastic tourist destination in Ontario, but one of the big perks that is generally overlooked is the Thousand Islands ATV Club’s beautiful trail system, and how ATV friendly the area can be!
Thousand Islands ATV Club was established in 2013 by an ambitious group of volunteers, eager to establish trails in their area so they could enjoy the use of their ATVs without having to trailer elsewhere. Thousand Islands ATV Club has 125 km of beautiful trails between Gananoque and extending as far as Athens, where their trail system joins up with Rideau Lakes ATV Club for many more km of trail enjoyment and continue to expand their trails each year.
Gananoque is an ATV friendly town, allowing ATVs to travel the roads with many tourist destinations to explore, either via ATV or by passenger vehicle. There are also many ATV friendly hotels and bed and breakfast locations to stay. You can hit up the Holiday Inn Express & Suites 1000 Islands or the Ramada by Wyndham Gananoque Provincial Inn, unload your ATV/UTV and ride out of town to the clubs trail head to start your adventure. The trail head has a restroom and club-house, and ample parking if you choose to trailer there.
From the trail head you can traverse a mix of private property trails, crown land, municipal property, over to Sand Bay County Park on beautiful Charleston Lake, where you can have a trail-side picnic/BBQ or cool off by having a dip in the Sandy beach!
A tour to Charleston Lake and back will fill your first day, and get you ready to enjoy other more traditional activities when you get back to your hotel or B&B. If gambling if your thing, you can ride your ATV over to the Shorelines Casino and try your hand with lady luck, or book yourself a boat tour of the Thousand Islands at City Cruises Gananoque or Rockport Cruises (but you’ll have to take your car to visit Rockport Cruises).
Gananoque and surrounding areas offer lots of other great tourist attractions (for more information check out https://www.gananoque.ca/explore-gananoque), but I wouldn’t leave my ATV/UTV behind or you’ll miss out on one of the best attractions of the Thousand Islands!
Dave Baker is a passionate outdoorsman with a deep love for hunting, fishing, trapping, and ATVing. He serves on the board and is a past president of the Ontario Federation of ATV Clubs (OFATV). You can follow him on X: @bigman78db.
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