The Best Location to Stay in Manitoulin Island: Where Moose Outnumber Minibars

The Best Location to Stay in Manitoulin Island: A Tour of Quirky Quarters

The question of the best location to stay in Manitoulin Island really comes down to a personality test. Are you someone who needs a grocery store within walking distance, or are you perfectly content with a panoramic view and driving 20 minutes for milk? Do you require nightly entertainment beyond watching constellations appear in unpolluted skies? Your answers will guide your accommodations strategy more effectively than any travel influencer’s filtered photos.

Little Current: The “Big City” Experience

Little Current serves as Manitoulin’s gatekeeper, with all mainlanders passing through this harbor town after crossing the swing bridge. The term “city” applies only in the most relative of contexts – we’re talking about 1,500 people who collectively maintain enough amenities to keep civilization functioning. The downtown stretch along Water Street features shops, restaurants, and the island’s only traffic light, which locals point to with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

Accommodation options range from the Indigenous-owned Manitoulin Hotel and Conference Centre ($150-200/night), with its waterfront views and cultural touches, to charming BandBs like the Anchored Inn ($95-125/night), where breakfast conversation with fellow travelers might be the most cosmopolitan experience you’ll have all day. Little Current’s key advantage is its proximity to civilization essentials: grocery stores, an LCBO (the Ontario government’s liquor monopoly store), and the Manitoulin Brewing Company, where visitors can debate the merits of locally-named beers like Swing Bridge Blonde Ale.

Little Current makes the perfect base camp for first-timers and those with urban withdrawal symptoms. From here, every attraction on the island sits within a 60-minute drive, making day trips painless. The town also hosts the Haweater Festival each August, a weekend celebration honoring early settlers who survived on hawthorn berries. Today’s festival features considerably better food options.

Gore Bay: For the Western Explorer

Gore Bay clings to Manitoulin’s western shore like a postcard waiting to happen. With a population of about 900, this artistic enclave centers around its natural harbor, where sailboats bob in summer breezes and the town rises up the hillside in tiers of century-old buildings. It’s reminiscent of small coastal towns in Maine but without the lobster pricing and with considerably fewer L.L. Bean outfits per capita.

Accommodations like the Inn at Gore Bay ($120-150/night) offer harbor views and walking distance to the town’s surprising number of art galleries. Split Rail Brewing Company holds down the western end of Manitoulin’s brewery rivalry, ensuring that no traveler need go more than 45 minutes without craft beer access – a true humanitarian service.

Gore Bay’s strategic advantage lies in its proximity to outdoor adventures. The Cup and Saucer hiking trail (one of Ontario’s most spectacular viewpoints) sits just 30 minutes east, while Misery Bay Provincial Nature Reserve lies 25 minutes south. Despite its foreboding name, Misery Bay delivers Lake Huron shoreline so pristine that visitors routinely forget to check their phones for hours at a stretch – a phenomenon scientists have yet to explain.

Providence Bay: Beach Bums and Families

If beaches rank high on your priority list, Providence Bay claims Manitoulin’s finest – 1.5 miles of sandy shoreline that would command $500/night hotel rates anywhere else. Instead, accommodations range from the Providence Bay Tent and Trailer Park (camping from $35/night) to lakeside cottages ($125-250/night depending on whether you want Instagram-interior-worthy or just clean-and-functional).

This south shore community excels at family-friendly atmosphere. The beach features playground equipment partially submerged in sand, a boardwalk that spans the beachfront, and water shallow enough that parents can briefly relax their hypervigilance. Nearby Manitoulin Chocolate Works provides the sugar rush needed to appreciate the area’s natural tranquility, with calories that somehow don’t count when consumed on island time.

Providence Bay’s annual fair (mid-August) delivers peak rural Canadiana: agricultural exhibitions, tractor pulls, and midway games where stuffed animals of questionable manufacturing origin can be won through games of dubious fairness. City slickers find themselves inexplicably drawn to these activities, temporarily forgetting their urban sophistication while tossing rings at bottle necks with surprising competitiveness.

Mindemoya: Central Command

Positioned like a bullseye in Manitoulin’s center, Mindemoya offers strategic advantage for island exploration. From this 954-person metropolis, nothing on Manitoulin sits more than 45 minutes away – a convenience that shouldn’t be underestimated when planning daily adventures. The community surrounds Lake Mindemoya, which contains the island’s most mind-bending geographical feature: Treasure Island, a small island on a lake on an island in a lake. If that sentence gave you vertigo, imagine trying to explain it to your friends back home.

Accommodations like the Manitoulin Inn ($110-140/night) provide comfortable if not luxurious lodging, with the town’s primary selling point being practicality rather than picturesque charm. Mindemoya houses the island’s largest grocery store, pharmacy, and medical center – essential knowledge for travelers with medical conditions or picky eaters. The nearby Bridal Veil Falls offers a photogenic 35-foot cascade accessible via a short walk from the parking area, meaning you can squeeze in natural wonder between errands.

Mindemoya Lake also provides excellent fishing opportunities, with smallmouth bass, northern pike, and perch in abundant supply. Local fishing guides display the particular brand of laconic wisdom unique to people who spend their lives outsmarting creatures with brains the size of peas. Their stories alone justify the guide fees.

South Baymouth: Ferry Fantastic

South Baymouth exists primarily as the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry’s southern terminal, coming alive May through October when the ferry connects Manitoulin to the Bruce Peninsula. This seasonal community hosts a population that swells from nearly-abandoned to merely-quiet during summer months, with most businesses hibernating through winter.

Accommodations like the South Bay Resort ($130-170/night) and various cottage rentals cater to those arriving or departing via ferry. The primary advantage is logistical – early morning ferry departures become considerably less painful when your bed sits five minutes from the terminal. South Baymouth also offers excellent fishing charter opportunities, with Lake Huron’s deep waters providing habitats for salmon and lake trout that grow to sizes that guarantee exaggerated fishing stories.

The village itself contains just enough services to sustain travelers – a grocery store, a couple of restaurants, and the obligatory ice cream shop that seems mandated by Canadian tourism law. What South Baymouth lacks in amenities it compensates for with front-row seats to Lake Huron sunrises that make even committed night owls consider early wakening.

Special Consideration: Indigenous Experiences

Manitoulin Island holds the distinction of being home to several First Nations communities, with the Wikwemikong Unceded Territory being the largest. For travelers seeking cultural understanding beyond postcard-deep tourism, staying near or visiting these communities offers unparalleled insight into North America’s original inhabitants.

The annual Cultural Festival and Powwow (August) ranks among Canada’s premier indigenous cultural events, featuring dance competitions, traditional foods, and crafts. Visitors should research proper etiquette before attending – cultural appreciation requires respect rather than just camera memory. Accommodations in these areas tend toward the functional rather than luxurious, but the authentic experiences compensate for any lack of thread count.

Several tour companies offer experiences led by indigenous guides who provide perspective stretching back thousands of years – far deeper than the typical historical narrative. These tours frequently become travelers’ most memorable experiences, challenging preconceptions and expanding understanding of land that has been continuously inhabited for millennia.

Seasonal Considerations

The best location to stay in Manitoulin Island varies dramatically depending on when you visit. During peak season (July-August), accommodations throughout the island require booking 2-3 months in advance, with waterfront properties vanishing from availability 4-6 months ahead. Summer temperatures average a comfortable 68-75F – warm enough for swimming at most beaches but rarely hot enough to make air conditioning necessary.

Shoulder seasons (May-June, September-October) offer value hunters the same spectacular scenery with 15-30% discounts and significantly fewer fellow tourists. Spring brings wildflowers carpeting fields and forests, while fall delivers spectacular foliage with sugar maples blazing in orange and red. Temperatures during these periods range from 50-65F – perfect for hiking but requiring a wetsuit for all but the most cold-resistant swimmers.

Winter visitors face a dramatically different Manitoulin. Most businesses close entirely from November through April, with temperatures frequently below 32F. The swing bridge remains operational, but the Chi-Cheemaun hibernates until spring. Winter accommodation options shrink to a handful of year-round establishments, primarily in Little Current and Mindemoya. The compensation for these limitations: pristine snow-covered landscapes, ice fishing opportunities, and stargazing under winter skies so clear and brilliant they appear almost three-dimensional.