The Kawartha Lakes are part of the 386-km (240-mile) Trent–Severn Waterway that runs from Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay and was originally built in the 19th century. Today the area is a playground for vacationers, with water-based activities including cruises and superb fishing. Renting a houseboat from one of the coastal villages is a popular way of exploring the locality. At the center of the region lies the friendly city of Peterborough, notable for its university, pleasing waterfront parks, and the world’s largest hydraulic liftlock. Thirty-four km (21 miles) north lies the Curve Lake Indian Reserve’s famous Whetung Gallery, one of the best places locally for native arts and crafts.

Petroglyphs Provincial Park , 30 km (19 miles) to the north of Peterborough, is better known to locals as the “teaching rocks” for the 900-plus aboriginal rock carvings cut into the park’s white marble outcrops. Rediscovered in 1954, these wonderfully preserved symbols and figures of animals, boats, spirits, and people were made by spiritual leaders to record their dreams and visions. Today the stones are housed in a huge glass building, built around them in 1984 to protect them from frost. The stones remain respectfully regarded to this day as a sacred site by native peoples.