Torontonians who are living the life aquatic explain why they love their floating homes. 'It’s like camping every day—but with amenities,' says one full-time boater
Toronto Island Marina
When they met in 2008 at U of T’s Hart House, Laura Alderson and Paul Bedford found that they shared an enthusiasm for boats. As a child, Laura would visit her uncles’ cottages in the Kawarthas, where they had small motorboats. “That was the highlight of the cottage experience for me,” she says. Paul’s father had owned two boats in his hometown of Oakville. At age 12, Paul puttered around Sixteen Mile Creek on a cedar strip boat he bought for $100 with paper-route money.
Five years ago, the couple decided to get a boat of their own and picked up a teak-filled trawler yacht in Parry Sound. “She’s my retirement project,” says Paul of, his fifth and favourite boat. During the warmer months, the couple uses the yacht as a cottage and spends as much time aboard as possible. “We’ll go home to get the mail or if the weather is lousy,” says Laura. They like the added bonus of skipping a long drive up north.
When they don’t feel like cooking, they have dinner at the marina’s Upper Deck Bar. “We also like biking to the Island Café on Ward’s Island, where they grow their own vegetables,” says Laura. During the pandemic, their floating recreational home was a refreshing alternative to their downtown condo with its tiny balcony. “I have an office on the boat, and we have internet and watch TV,” Laura says. Paul enjoys refreshing the boat’s teak exterior, which was grey when they bought it.
“I’ve always loved the romance of owning an old wooden boat,” says Laura. “When we started looking, Paul, who knows how hard they are to maintain, said, ‘I know a boat that is fibreglass but still has enough wood to keep you busy”This grassy area is right in front of the couple’s boat at the marina. Muskoka chairs and a firepit mimic the cottage experience
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