Toronto Islands Layover: Ferry and Lighthouse

The Jack Layton Ferry Terminal on Toronto’s inner harbour sends boats to three points on the Toronto Islands in about fifteen minutes, and what waits on the other side is a car-free chain of parkland with an 1808 lighthouse, a children’s amusement park and a boardwalk along the open lake.

Three ferry routes leave from the foot of Bay Street

The terminal sits on the water at the bottom of Bay Street, named after the federal opposition leader who died in 2011 and lived on the islands he is now the gateway to. Three routes run from it: Centre Island, Ward’s Island and Hanlan’s Point, all of them about fifteen minutes on the water. One ticket covers the return, CA$9.57 for an adult, CA$6.15 for students and seniors, CA$4.51 under 14 and nothing under two.

All three routes run on the summer timetable from mid-May to mid-September, which is the stretch with departures frequent enough for a short visit to work. Outside it, the Ward’s Island boat keeps going on a thinner schedule, and reading the return time before you sail matters more than anything else about the trip. Once across, the islands are a long thin chain of parkland with no cars anywhere on it, so a half-day island bike tour booked through a tours and activities platform covers ground that walking will not. Boarding is through a single line of turnstiles onto one gangway per sailing, and on a summer weekend that queue runs back along the pier.

Centreville’s rides fill the middle of Centre Island

Centre Island’s park side carries an amusement park that opened in 1967 with seven rides, run by the Beasley family, and has added one or two most years since. It now has more than thirty, most of them scaled for small children: a carousel, a log flume, swan boats, a miniature railway.

Entry to the grounds costs nothing and the rides are sold by ticket or wristband, which means you can walk through the middle of it on the way to the pier without paying anything. Around it are formal flower beds, a fountain and the long straight avenue down to the Centre Island pier, and past that the water. With no children in tow there is no reason to stop, and the path through takes five minutes.

Gibraltar Point Lighthouse has stood since 1808

Hanlan’s Point, at the western end of the chain, carries a tapering stone tower that was finished in 1808 and is the oldest surviving lighthouse on the Great Lakes, as well as one of the oldest buildings in Toronto of any kind. It went up 52 feet to the top of its lantern, built from Queenston stone with three-inch planks nailed together using ironwork forged at Fort York.

It no longer lights anything and it is not open to go up, so this is a stop for standing in front of a very old object rather than climbing one. The lake has moved since it was built, which is why a lighthouse meant to warn ships now stands a good way inland among trees. Walking east from it, the path runs the length of the islands to the timber boardwalk along Ward’s Island’s lake shore, the quietest stretch of the whole chain and the one where you stop hearing the city altogether.

The last ferry, not the distance, is what to plan around

Crossing back takes the same fifteen minutes, but the departures thin out through the evening and on the shoulder-season timetable, so the return sailing sets the shape of the whole visit. From the terminal it is about ten minutes on foot or a short streetcar ride to Union Station, and the UP Express runs from there to Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) every fifteen minutes, 25 to 28 minutes, CA$12.35 or CA$9.25 tapped with a Presto card.

Add it up and two hours between stepping off the boat and standing at the check-in desk is comfortable, ninety minutes is tight. If the timetable does not work in your favour, the central Toronto itinerary stays on the mainland and has no boat to miss.