1,000* things to do in the 1000 Islands

Crystal blue waters, quaint lakeside towns and even a heart-shaped island at the centre of a tragic love story: all of this, and more, is just waiting to be explored in the 1000 Islands, a surprisingly underrated destination in southeastern Ontario.

Straddling the border of Canada and the United States, the 1000 Islands are actually a collection of 1,864 islands located along the St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Brockville. A sightseer’s paradise, the area is known for its beauty, world-class fishing, rich history, and of course, Thousand Islands dressing.

There are as many things to do in the 1000 islands as there are islands, from touring Boldt Castle to participating in a food tour around Kingston and even watching a waterside play in Gananoque. Scattered throughout the islands and surrounding deep blue waters are also shipwrecks, museums, and mansions that reflect the history and culture of the area. Wondering how you can experience it all? Start with these six top activities and attractions.

Dawn was creeping over Prince Albert National Park when I stopped to watch a muskrat emerge from Waskesiu Lake. After four days of scanning the skies on Eagle-Eye Tours Saskatchewan Whooping Crane trip, it felt weird to be looking down. I watched the small rodent probe the shoreline, wet fur glistening as small brown eyes peered back at me as I snapped pictures to share with the other people on the tour.
As a Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) Travel Ambassador, I help people see the beauty in the land we call Canada. And adventure, for me, isn’t measured in the number of miles travelled but in the depths of awareness gained.

Canadian Geographic readers should be familiar with our Explorer-in-Residence, storm chaser, lava enthusiast, Can Geo Travel Ambassador and all-around swell guy, George Kourounis. It takes a special kind of individual to fly into hurricanes, abseil into erupting volcanoes, or chase tornadoes worldwide. As the host of Angry Planet, George has led expeditions into the world’s most hostile environments and won all sorts of awards for his contribution to scientific research, including holding a Guinness World Record for the first person insane enough to descend into Turkmenistan’s 69-metre-deep Darvaza gas crater (it’s one of my kids’ favourite YouTube clips.) George and I first crossed paths with our respective television shows on OLN (his was way better than mine, for the record). I thought I’d ask him some of the questions he often gets and some of the ones that seldom come his way.

The Canadian Rockies are one of the most visited places in the country, but few people have had the chance to witness the otherworldly beauty of their hidden glacier caves. Remote and often treacherous to access, these majestic caverns are not easy to navigate safely. But for travel and landscape photographer Stanley Aryanto of The Wicked Hunt, a passion for exploring the unknown has resulted in a series of stunning images that uncover a concealed world of glacial grandeur.

Born in a tropical metropolis in Indonesia and raised in sunny Western Australia, Aryanto had no experience photographing cold environments, let alone ice caves, when he first moved to Canada in 2018.

Inspired by the work of renowned landscape photographer and adventurer Paul Zizka, Aryanto embarked on a mission to rapidly improve his mountain safety skills.