DESTINATION: CANADA : Summer’s End in Lake Land : Entranced by fiery foliage, unspoiled waters and antique boats in Muskokas

The old steamboat appeared on the horizon, smoke rising from its single red stack to dust the sky. It would take away another batch of families and the leftovers from their summer as “cottagers” here on the Muskoka lakes.

From across the water a lone loon called. An answer followed.

It was early morning on the lake. The water was flat, a perfect mirror for the blue sky and the trees’ fall colors that flashed across the surface like dancing flames, yellow, orange, crimson. In the middle distance, pine and birch dotted the massive rock that made up a one-acre island, which appeared to float suspended between earth and sky.

I shivered in the chill morning air, its grainy granite scent mixed with those of dry leaves and smoke from a nearby wood stove.

The Muskokas, a two-hour drive north of Toronto, are three crystal lakes carved out of granite by the slow passage of glaciers in the last ice age. They are linked by locks and a canal made more than a century ago to facilitate commercial traffic. Otherwise, nature has been minimally interfered with here.

Along the miles and miles of wooded shoreline are private summer homes--”cottages,” some as grand as money can buy--and a handful of old hotels from gracious resort days.

I was visiting my friend Kathy, who has summered here since childhood. I’d walked down to the shore of her little island in Lake Rosseau to watch for the Segwun, the steamboat.

The 112-year-old vessel was rehabilitated by donations from locals 10 years ago. It is used for tours of the lakes and evening supper cruises as well as transportation from cottage docks to a few “mainland” towns.

As I watched the Segwun approach, the sound of a motor broke the stillness closer in. It was followed immediately by another. Soon two mahogany plankboats pulled up to Kathy’s dock. Today there was to be a regatta of sorts when the antique plankboats, many seen rarely, would come out to greet the Segwun and celebrate its long and faithful service.

I’d never seen a plankboat before and hurried over. “They look like dolphins,” I exclaimed. Around 20 feet long, with seating for four, the boats sit low in the water. Their long, sleek, rounded form makes them look more like fish than like human inventions.

Dick and Jerry, the owners and Kathy’s childhood friends, smiled proudly.

I ran my hand over the silky-smooth surface of the heavily lacquered wood. The red leather of the cushions looked welcoming. The brass and chrome fittings gleamed in the sun. “How do you keep them so perfect? I mean, they look new,” I said.

“Boathouses protect them--and a lot of varnish and elbow grease,” Dick said, laughing.

We left the dock--I was in Dick’s boat, Kathy in Jerry’s--to join the growing flotilla of antique boats. Soon there were 50 or 60, and the water turned rough from their wakes. There was a feeling of exhilaration in the air as friends greeted one another and admired the array of elegant floating antiques. The Segwun blew its deep, raspy whistle as we gathered around, bobbing in the water like ardent suitors for a great lady.

Some of the plankboats were crammed full of people, their hands full of drinks, binoculars, ice cream bars and sandwiches. Children hung over the sides, to everyone’s apparent unconcern.

Several of the boats presented a more sedate image and were elegantly appointed. One in particular caught my eye. The man and woman on board were dressed in crisp white suits. The man wore a captain’s hat with gold insignia; the woman, a wide-brimmed black hat right out of the turn of the century. Their drinks were in champagne glasses.

After everyone had seen everyone else and the Segwun moved on, the flotilla broke up to take people to the next event of their day: a nap under a pine tree, golf at the club, lunch with friends, a water-ski lesson.

Dick proposed a little tour, and I was delighted. I’d arrived the day before and had seen only Kathy’s island. Dick waved to Jerry to follow, and the four of us sped across the lake.

As we approached the shore, the outlines of a large white building came into focus. A smooth green lawn spread from its base in a widening semicircle until it met the water. We pulled up at the dock of Windermere House. Like a gracious bird with outspread wings, the three-story, gabled Victorian hotel welcomed us, and the wide veranda drew us in.

Just the sight of the Windermere made me nostalgic for a time that was simpler, slower. I was surprised to learn that this was a new hotel, a replica of the original, which burned down in 1996 during the filming of a movie, “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” It was rebuilt to look exactly as before, down to the rustic Mission-style oak and pine furniture.

Tennis courts, swimming pools, a recreation hall for nightly movies and dances, restaurants, boating, skiing, swim lessons--the list of traditional summer resort activities was as broad as the lawn where croquet was played.

Once, the Muskokas boasted more than 50 hotels similar to the Windermere. Now only a handful remain.

The Windermere had reopened just a few months before my visit, and the locals were still celebrating, my hosts said. The Windermere’s public dining room had been “the” place to go for dinner, with the sort of food and service city people were used to. That was one more thing that hadn’t changed.

Dick suggested we stop in for oysters, for which the restaurant was locally famous. When Jerry and Kathy joined us a few minutes later, Jerry’s dog was also welcomed to the outdoor dining area where we sat and snacked, looking out at the lake.

Lake Rosseau is large, but not so large that you can’t see a good deal of the shoreline, and all along the ins and outs of its perimeter the trees had turned color. It was breathtaking. The brilliant hues of reds, oranges and golds framed the cerulean blue of the water like an ornate setting for a sapphire.

As we devoured a platter of oysters, washed down with beer in frosty glasses, Kathy and her childhood friends told me a little about the history of the area.

The Muskoka region, dotted with hundreds of lakes, was home to Iroquois, Algonquin, Ojibway and Mohawk tribes and was known to fur traders, surveyors and settlers looking for free land grants. About 100 miles west is Lake Huron and access to the heartland of the continent.

Sportsmen first developed Muskoka as a wilderness retreat in the 1850s, and the locks were built for transporting logs for the timber industry. When the railroads opened up the region in the 1880s, word of its beauty spread to Toronto and cities in the northeast U.S., drawing wealthy families to spend the summer in country comfort.

Over the years, people of more moderate means built summer homes along the shorelines and on the many islands that dot the three connected lakes. The styles of these homes run the gamut from log cabin simplicity--no electricity or plumbing--to three-bedroom retreats with up-to-the-minute electric kitchens. What almost all have in common is a wide front porch that looks out on the lake and some kind of boat dock.

Many of today’s cottagers have been coming to the Muskokas for several generations. But for newcomers there are still a few grand hotels left that make a wonderful introduction to the neighborhood, as well as more moderate accommodations.

When we returned to Kathy’s, I lay under a stand of birch beside the house where I could watch the light play through golden leaves that fluttered in the breeze. I could hear boats moving across the lake in the distance, but nothing else. The calm felt as deep as the water that surrounded me, and I slipped into sleep.

I woke lazily to the clattering of pans and the smell of burning charcoal. Kathy suggested we go out in her canoe to catch the last light on the water while the coals were heating. As we pushed off from the shore, the scent of wet wood in the still-warm sun enveloped us.

We glided silently out to where the reflections of colored leaves also danced away from the land. From our vantage on the surface of the water, the lowering sun was caught in the trees and shone back in golden facets. It was like being inside a jewel.

I dangled my arm over the side, letting my fingers run through the warm water.

As we drifted, Kathy told me about life on the lakes 40 years ago--about Sunday night movies at the lodges; about Tuesday nights when they’d dress up, the boys in suits and ties, the girls in full skirts with crinolines, and head out in their boats to Dunn’s Pavilion, the local dance hall.

“During the days, like Rat and Mole from ‘The Wind in the Willows,’ we were obsessed with boats,” Kathy laughed. “We all had our own, even if it was only a small dinghy. That was important.”

It was easy for me to imagine Kathy as a child in her first canoe; to be a cottager was to be a boat person.

“Today the boats are faster, louder and far more expensive,” she went on, “but for the young people who summer on the Muskokas, whatever their age, time spent here is boat time. It’s a kind of time before time, where your imagination expands. In the fall when the winds really come up, I sometimes imagine Poseidon rising from the water.”

Autumn weather in the Muskokas is unpredictable, sometimes changing two or three times a day, Kathy said. Still, many people keep their cottages open until Canadian Thanksgiving in mid-October (this year, Oct. 11).

Kathy had explained that a sure sign of autumn was the gathering of loons as they prepare to fly south for the winter. These large white birds with black markings have a distinctive call, a high-pitched, drawn-out sound that reminds people of a wolf baying at the moon.

Soon one of the birds settled on the water not far from us. “Listen--maybe it will call,” she whispered.

For some time the loon glided about in circles, and we heard no call, so we turned toward home and dinner. But something in that moment perfectly captured autumn, when the call to something else is felt by all creatures.

GUIDEBOOK

Canadian Lakes Idyll

Getting there: Air Canada flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Toronto. Connecting service--one plane change--is offered by American, Canadian International, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways. Round-trip fares start at $333.

The Muskoka resort area starts at Gravenhurst, 100 miles north of Toronto, a two-hour drive on routes 400 and 11.

The Segwun sails from Gravenhurst and Port Carling, May to October. Telephone (705) 687-6667.

Where to stay: Windermere House, on Lake Rosseau, is open from May until Oct. 11. Lakeview lodge rooms are $115 per person, double, with breakfast and dinner. Tel. (705) 769- 3611, fax (705) 769-2168, Internet https://www.windermerehouse.com.

The venerable Clevelands House on Lake Rosseau is also open until mid-October. Rates start at $118 per person, with three meals. Tel. (705) 765-3171, fax (705) 765-6296.

Deerhurst Resort, dating to 1896, is on Peninsula Lake, about 10 miles beyond the turnoff for Lake Rosseau. Open year-round. Its winter program includes skiing and dog sledding. Double rooms run $75 to $170. Tel. (705) 789-6411, fax (705) 789-2431, Internet https://www.deerhurst.on.ca.

For more information: The Muskoka Lakes Assn. can help with lodging, boat rentals, events and sports; tel. (705) 765-3156, fax (705) 765-6755. For the Segwun, tel. (705) 687-6667. Also: Canadian Tourism, 550 S. Hope St., Los Angeles, CA 90071; tel. (213) 346-2700, fax (213) 346-2767, Internet https:// www.canadatourism.com.