Lost Villages Ontario: Long Sault Parkway Visit Guide

The Lost Villages of Ontario are six villages and four hamlets on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, between Cornwall and Morrisburg, permanently flooded on 1 July 1958 to build the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Moses-Saunders Power Dam. The Long Sault Parkway is the road that runs across what is left: a causeway strung between former hilltops that became islands when the river rose. It is drivable, roughly 10 km end to end, and it carries three campgrounds and a set of public beaches.

What you can do there today, without a guided tour or a booking:

• Lost Villages Museum, Ault Park. Free admission, donations accepted, volunteer-operated by the Lost Villages Historical Society. Seasonal, and it closes in the late afternoon (commonly cited as 5pm). Call before driving out. [VERIFY current season and daily hours with the Society]
• Two memorials on the Upper Canada Village grounds. The Pioneer Memorial and the Crysler’s Farm Battlefield Memorial. Both sit on the grounds rather than inside the paid village. [VERIFY current grounds-access arrangement and parking with the St. Lawrence Parks Commission before relying on this]
• Three campgrounds on the Parkway islands. Mille Roches, Woodlands and McLaren, operated by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission.
• Day-use permit. Required for the Parkway’s beaches and day-use areas. Price is set by the Commission and changes; check the current fee schedule. [NEEDS SOURCE for the current per-vehicle rate]

Drive times, approximate and traffic-dependent: about 4 hours from Toronto, about 1 hour 15 minutes from Ottawa, about 1 hour 30 minutes from Montreal. The Parkway sits directly beside Highway 401 between exits for Long Sault and Ingleside, which makes it one of the easiest scenic detours on the Toronto–Montreal corridor.

Fees, hours and rules in this guide should be confirmed against the operator’s current pages before you travel. Seasonal dates shift every year, and the museum’s hours depend on volunteer availability.

Visual brief: Highway 401, old Highway 2, the Long Sault Parkway causeway and its islands, the three campgrounds, the Lost Villages Museum at Ault Park, Upper Canada Village with the Pioneer Memorial and Crysler’s Farm Memorial pinned separately, and approximate locations of the six flooded villages beneath Lake St. Lawrence. Data: village locations from historical mapping, campground and museum coordinates from operator sites, correctly licensed base map.

Why ten communities were flooded

The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project was a joint Canada–United States undertaking with two goals. Deepen the navigation channel so ocean-going ships could reach the Great Lakes. Generate hydroelectricity at a new dam between Cornwall, Ontario and Massena, New York.

Both required the same thing: a much higher water level upstream of the dam.

The rapids that gave Long Sault its name were the obstacle. Drowning them created a head pond, later named Lake St. Lawrence, and that head pond covered the shoreline where people had lived since the Loyalist settlement of the 1780s. Approximately 6,500 residents were relocated. That figure is worth stating precisely, because retellings of the story routinely inflate it to 65,000. The error is tenfold, and it has spread through blogs and social posts for years.

Inundation Day was the first of July. A cofferdam holding back the river was breached, and the area filled over roughly four days rather than in a single dramatic surge.

Ontario Hydro moved what it could. Around 500 houses were jacked up and carried on trailers to two purpose-built towns, Long Sault and Ingleside, both laid out from nothing to receive the displaced population. [VERIFY house-move count against the Lost Villages Historical Society] Buildings that could not be moved, or that nobody wanted, were burned or demolished before the water arrived. Highway 2 and the Grand Trunk / CN rail line were rerouted north onto higher ground. At several points along the shore, the old road surface still runs down the bank and disappears into the lake.

Community	Type	Notes
Aultsville	Village	Rail station survives, relocated to the Upper Canada Village area
Dickinson’s Landing	Village	Historic canal and landing settlement
Farran’s Point	Village	Canal lock site
Mille Roches	Village	Name carried on by Mille Roches Campground
Moulinette	Village	Name from the mill on the rapids
Wales	Village	Inland community, rail junction
Maple Grove	Hamlet
Santa Cruz	Hamlet
Woodlands	Hamlet	Name carried on by Woodlands Campground
Sheek’s Island	Hamlet	Island community in the river

Visual brief: the ten communities with approximate pre-flood population, what stood in each, and where residents were relocated (Long Sault, Ingleside or elsewhere). Data: Lost Villages Historical Society records cross-checked against published community histories.

Visual brief: then-and-now cross-section showing the pre-flood shoreline, the raised level of Lake St. Lawrence, and how village hilltops became the Parkway islands. Label “not to scale” and cite the published water-level change figure for the project.

Driving the Long Sault Parkway through Ontario’s Lost Villages: route, season and permits

The Parkway runs between the village of Long Sault at the east end and Ingleside at the west, both reached from their own Highway 401 exits. It is a spur off old Highway 2, and it parallels the 401 closely enough that you can leave the highway at one exit and rejoin at the next.

Roughly 10 km of road, crossing a chain of eleven islands linked by causeways. [VERIFY exact length and island count on the St. Lawrence Parks Commission page] Driven without stopping, that is about fifteen minutes. Allow ninety minutes if you want beach stops and time at the pull-offs, and half a day if you are swimming or picnicking.

The Parkway operates seasonally. The Commission publishes opening and closing dates each year, and they typically span mid-May to early October, with the shoulder weeks dependent on weather and staffing. [VERIFY current-season dates with the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. Do not treat these months as fixed] Outside the operating season, services close and access is reduced or gated.

A day-use vehicle permit is required to use the beaches and day-use areas. It is bought at the entrance or at a campground office, and a valid camping registration normally covers day use for the registered vehicle. [NEEDS SOURCE for the current permit price and the exact camping-inclusion rule. Both come from the Commission’s fee schedule]

Practical points on the road itself:

• The posted speed limit is low by highway standards; the road is narrow, and causeway shoulders are minimal.
• Cycling is popular here and the flat causeway route is why. There is no separated bike lane on most of the run.
• Beaches are unsupervised. There are no lifeguards at any Parkway beach.
• Services on the Parkway are limited to campground offices. Fuel, groceries and food are in Long Sault, Ingleside, Morrisburg and Cornwall.

As a Toronto–Montreal detour: staying on the 401 between the Ingleside and Long Sault exits takes a handful of minutes. Taking the Parkway instead adds roughly 20 to 30 minutes of driving for the same corridor position, plus whatever you spend stopped. It is the shortest scenic detour on that stretch. The other one, the Thousand Islands Parkway near Gananoque, adds a similar order of time and sits about 90 minutes further west.

Visual brief: aerial or elevated shot along the causeway showing the road, the island chain and the width of Lake St. Lawrence. Licensed or commissioned photography, shot in operating season.

Camping on the Parkway: three campgrounds and the two-night rule

Three campgrounds sit on the Parkway islands, all run by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission: Mille Roches, Woodlands and McLaren. Between them they offer a mix of waterfront and interior sites, electrical and unserviced sites, comfort stations with showers, trailer sanitation stations and boat launches. For the wider system, see our St. Lawrence Parks camping guide.

	Mille Roches	Woodlands	McLaren
Position on Parkway	East end, nearest Long Sault	Central	West end, nearest Ingleside
Electrical sites	Yes	Yes	[VERIFY]
Unserviced sites	Yes	Yes	Yes
Waterfront sites	Yes	Yes	Yes
Showers / comfort station	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]
Boat launch	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]
Trailer sanitation	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]	[VERIFY]
Nightly rate	[NEEDS SOURCE]	[NEEDS SOURCE]	[NEEDS SOURCE]

Every cell marked above needs to come from the Commission’s current campground pages and reservation system, captured on one date. Do not take nightly rates from forum posts or older blog writeups. Site numbers and dollar figures look alike in screenshots and get confused constantly.

The booking rule that catches road-trippers. Online reservations in peak season carry a published minimum-night requirement, commonly two nights for weekday bookings and three for holiday weekends at Ontario parks systems generally. [VERIFY the exact minimum the St. Lawrence Parks Commission applies, and quote its wording] If you are driving Toronto to Montreal and want one night, the online system will simply refuse to sell it to you.

The documented route around that is same-day or walk-in registration at the campground office, where minimum-night rules on advance online bookings do not apply to what is left unsold. Phone the office first. Availability is not guaranteed, and on July and August weekends, or any holiday weekend, the realistic answer is often no.

Other operational details to confirm before you arrive:

• Check-in and check-out times are published by the Commission. [NEEDS SOURCE]
• Quiet hours apply overnight and are enforced by park staff.
• Firewood is sold at campground offices. Ontario has movement restrictions on firewood to limit the spread of the emerald ash borer, so bringing wood from home is generally discouraged or prohibited. [VERIFY the Commission’s specific rule]
• Finding your site is harder than it should be. Signage on the island loops is sparse. Photograph the office map before you drive in.

If all three are full, the indoor fallback is Cornwall to the east, about 15 minutes from the Long Sault end, or Morrisburg to the west, with additional motels along old Highway 2.

Lost Villages Museum, Ault Park: free, volunteer-run, closes at 5pm

This is the most substantial thing on the route and the least well documented online.

The museum is a collection of buildings physically moved out of the villages before the water came, reassembled on a site at Ault Park just east of the Parkway’s Long Sault end. It is operated by the Lost Villages Historical Society, a volunteer organisation formed to preserve the record of the ten communities.

Admission is free. Donations are accepted and are how the site runs. Because it is staffed by volunteers, the season is short and the daily hours are narrower than a municipal museum’s. Published closing time is 5pm, with a season roughly spanning late spring to early autumn and weekend opening at the edges of it. [VERIFY the current season, days open and closing time directly with the Society by phone. Volunteer availability changes them]

The buildings on site include a relocated railway station, a village general store, the Stuart family house, a one-room schoolhouse and a church, alongside smaller structures and a collection of village artefacts. [VERIFY the current building list against the Society’s site] They are not reconstructions. They stood in the villages.

Allow an hour to ninety minutes to walk the grounds and go through the buildings. Parking is on site and free. The grounds are largely flat and grassed; individual heritage buildings have steps and thresholds typical of nineteenth-century construction, so wheelchair access varies building to building. [VERIFY accessibility with the Society]

The Society runs annual events on the site, including commemorations tied to the flooding anniversary. A separate, external operator schedules ticketed paranormal investigation nights at the museum. That is a commercial event that exists on the calendar and can be booked; it carries no implication about the buildings themselves.

Visual brief: wide shot of the museum grounds with several relocated buildings in frame, plus a detail of the railway station. Licensed or commissioned photography, permission from the Lost Villages Historical Society.

Upper Canada Village: two memorials you can see without a ticket

Upper Canada Village, near Morrisburg, is a large paid living-history site depicting an 1860s Canadian community, with costumed interpreters and working trades. Adult admission and the operating season are published by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. [NEEDS SOURCE for the current adult price and season] It suits a half or full day, and it is a different kind of visit from everything else in this guide. Our Upper Canada Village visitor guide covers the paid site in detail.

Two memorials connected to the flooding sit on the grounds.

The Pioneer Memorial holds headstones and grave markers relocated from cemeteries in the flood zone. It exists because the relocation was partial. Some burials were moved ahead of the water; others were left in place and covered over, with the markers taken up and brought here. The memorial stands in for graves that were never moved at all, which is the fact most retellings of the Lost Villages story leave out.

The Crysler’s Farm Battlefield Memorial is a landscaped mound and monument commemorating the Battle of Crysler’s Farm, fought on 11 November 1813 during the War of 1812. Two errors circulate widely and are worth naming: the date is 1813, not 1818, and the war is the War of 1812, not an eighteenth-century conflict. On that day an American force advancing down the St. Lawrence toward Montreal was turned back by a much smaller British, Canadian and Indigenous force. The advance on Montreal collapsed. [VERIFY troop figures against the Parks Canada National Historic Site designation record before quoting numbers]

The original battlefield is under Lake St. Lawrence. The monument was moved to its present mound when the ground it stood on was flooded.

Both memorials are on the Upper Canada Village grounds rather than behind the admission gate, with their own parking area and a path up the mound. [VERIFY the current access arrangement directly with the operator before you go. Grounds-access rules can change by season, and this is the single fact in the article most worth a phone call.] The mound has benches and a west-facing view over the lake, which makes it a straightforward picnic and sunset stop.

On and under the water: diving, fishing and boating

Diving. Submerged remains in Lake St. Lawrence include building foundations, road beds running off the old shoreline, bridge abutments and lock structures from the pre-Seaway canal system. Depths on the recognised sites are generally shallow by wreck-diving standards, and the limiting factor is current rather than depth. The St. Lawrence moves fast, and the flow near the old channel and lock structures makes several sites drift dives suitable only for divers with current experience and appropriate certification. [VERIFY specific site names, depths and any recognised classification with a Cornwall or Morrisburg dive operator]

Charters and fills operate out of Cornwall, which is the practical base for diving here. Ontario and federal heritage rules restrict removal of artefacts from submerged archaeological sites; treat everything down there as look-only and confirm the governing rule rather than relying on forum advice. [NEEDS SOURCE for the applicable Ontario Heritage Act provisions]

Fishing. A valid Ontario recreational fishing licence is required, available online through the Ontario government’s licensing service or from licence issuers in Cornwall, Long Sault and Morrisburg. Lake St. Lawrence falls within an Ontario Fisheries Management Zone that determines seasons, size limits and catch limits. [VERIFY the zone number] Seasons and limits change annually, so the only safe source is the current Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources fishing regulations summary. Read it for the year you are fishing.

Boating and swimming. Boat launches serve the Parkway campgrounds and day-use areas. Beaches are unsupervised at every location on the Parkway, with no lifeguards on duty at any point in the season.

A one-day and an overnight plan

The museum’s late-afternoon close is the constraint that shapes everything. The instinct is to do the big paid attraction first and the small free museum afterwards. That is backwards, and it is how people end up at a locked gate at Ault Park.

Half-day, west to east (about 5 hours):

1. 12:00. Exit the 401 at Upper Canada Village. Crysler’s Farm Battlefield Memorial and the Pioneer Memorial, roughly 45 minutes on foot.
2. 13:00. Lunch in Morrisburg.
3. 14:00. Drive east to the Lost Villages Museum, about 20 minutes. Allow 75 minutes on site.
4. 15:30. Enter the Long Sault Parkway at the Long Sault end and drive it west, stopping at beaches and causeway pull-offs.
5. 17:00. Rejoin the 401 at Ingleside.

Overnight:

1. 15:00. Campground check-in at Mille Roches, Woodlands or McLaren. Pitch first.
2. 15:45. Lost Villages Museum, before the 5pm close.
3. 17:30. Drive west to the Crysler’s Farm mound. Benches, west-facing view, sunset.
4. Next morning. Parkway beaches and the causeway drive, then Upper Canada Village if you want the full paid site.

Fuel and groceries: Long Sault and Ingleside for basics, Morrisburg for a wider choice, Cornwall for full supermarkets and chain restaurants. Nothing on the Parkway itself sells food beyond campground offices.

For a longer trip on the same corridor, Brockville and the Thousand Islands Parkway sit about 90 minutes west, and Ottawa is roughly an hour north of the 401 at Prescott or Morrisburg.

Visual brief: stop order plotted against the clock for both plans, with the museum’s 5pm close drawn as a cutoff line. Data: confirmed opening hours and measured inter-stop drive times.

Visual brief: museum admission, museum hours, Upper Canada Village adult admission, the day-use permit, campsite rate ranges and campground check-in time, each with an “as of” date and a link to the operator page it came from. All figures captured on a single verification day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the Lost Villages in Ontario, Canada?

Six villages (Aultsville, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, Mille Roches, Moulinette and Wales) plus four hamlets, all on the St. Lawrence between Cornwall and Morrisburg, permanently flooded on 1 July 1958 for the Seaway and power project. Approximately 6,500 residents were relocated, many to the new towns of Long Sault and Ingleside.

What is the Long Sault Parkway?

A roughly 10 km scenic road operated by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, running between Long Sault and Ingleside across a chain of islands that were hilltops before the river was raised. It carries beaches, three campgrounds and a popular cycling route. A day-use permit applies at beaches and day-use areas.

What are the lost cities of Ontario?

They were villages and hamlets, not cities. The largest had populations in the hundreds, not thousands. The full set is Aultsville, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, Mille Roches, Moulinette and Wales, plus Maple Grove, Santa Cruz, Woodlands and Sheek’s Island. Ontario has other relocated and abandoned settlements, but these ten are the ones flooded together.

What is there to do in Long Sault?

The Lost Villages Museum at Ault Park is free and closes at 5pm, so do it first. The Long Sault Parkway offers beaches, cycling and camping at Mille Roches, Woodlands and McLaren. Fishing and diving are available on Lake St. Lawrence. Two memorials sit a short drive west at Upper Canada Village.

Is the Lost Villages Museum free?

Yes. Admission is free with donations accepted, and the site is run by volunteers under the Lost Villages Historical Society. It operates seasonally with a late-afternoon close, commonly stated as 5pm. Hours depend on volunteer availability, so phone the Society before travelling rather than relying on any published schedule.

When does the Long Sault Parkway open for the season?

The St. Lawrence Parks Commission sets opening and closing dates annually, typically running from spring through early autumn. Weather and staffing shift the shoulder dates each year, so treat any published date as provisional. Check the Commission’s Long Sault Parkway page for the current season before planning a trip around it.

Can you book one night on the Long Sault Parkway campgrounds?

Online reservations carry a published minimum-night requirement in peak season, which blocks single-night bookings through the website. Same-day or walk-in registration at the campground office is the documented route to one night. Availability is not guaranteed, particularly on summer and holiday weekends. Phone the campground office first.

Can you see the Pioneer Memorial and Crysler’s Farm monument without paying for Upper Canada Village?

Both memorials sit on the Upper Canada Village grounds rather than inside the paid living-history site, with their own parking. Confirm the current arrangement with the operator before you go, since grounds-access rules change by season. Full village admission is separate and applies only to the interpreted 1860s site.

Can you dive the Lost Villages?

Yes. Submerged foundations, road beds and pre-Seaway lock structures lie in Lake St. Lawrence at moderate depths. Current, not depth, is the limiting factor, and several sites are drift dives requiring current experience. Charters operate from Cornwall. Artefact removal from submerged heritage sites is restricted under Ontario law.

How far is the Long Sault Parkway from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal?

Approximately 4 hours from Toronto, 1 hour 15 minutes from Ottawa and 1 hour 30 minutes from Montreal, all traffic-dependent. Driving the Parkway instead of that stretch of Highway 401 adds roughly 20 to 30 minutes, plus stopping time, making it the shortest scenic detour on the Toronto–Montreal corridor.

Two phone calls decide whether a day in Ontario’s Lost Villages works: the Lost Villages Historical Society for the museum’s hours that week, and the campground office if you need a single night on the Long Sault Parkway. Make them before you set out, then drive the causeway and see how little of the shoreline the water left.

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Editor’s note, not for publication. Title, keyword placement, section heading, closing paragraph, image placeholders (7, matching the brief) and internal links are done. Internal link slugs are provisional and must be mapped against the live sitemap before publishing; I have not confirmed any of them exist. The meta description still needs writing, with a CTA verb: suggested draft, “Compare campgrounds, museum hours and the free memorials before you drive the Long Sault Parkway through Ontario’s Lost Villages.” Still needing a human with sources: every [VERIFY] and [NEEDS SOURCE] marker (standing rule is to preserve rather than delete, and I have no verified figures to substitute), the thin-figures and single-statistic findings, and the eight coverage gaps, which were not supplied with the brief. Those need research, not line editing.