This Idyllic Town in Canada Has Water So Clear, It Looks Like the Caribbean
Photo by Kelly Dawson
I didn’t exactly know where we were, and that was the best part. Last June, my friend Katlyn and I arrived in Toronto from separate ends of America, reuniting for the first time since 2018. But an hour after landing in Ontario’s capital, we were surrounded by verdant rolling fields, twisting and turning down two-lane roads toward some place called Sauble Beach. It felt as if the city disappeared as quickly as our friendship regained its rhythm.
About a year prior, I wrote about two friends who fixed up a midcentury outpost on the shores of Lake Huron, which Netflix had documented in a series called Motel Makeover. The owners and I kept in touch after the article was published, and they asked if I’d like to visit with a pal once summer returned. There was only one person I hoped could make it: Katlyn. Since we met in Prague as college students, Katlyn and I bonded over the best three words in the travel dictionary: “Sure, why not?” It’s how Krakow, Vienna, Joshua Tree, and Vermont ended up in our rearview mirror, and how a quiet Canadian coastal town stretched out in front of us.
