Cottages For Sale on Stony Lake

Owning a cottage on Stony Lake

Stoney Lake sits right on the seam between the Canadian Shield and the farm country to the south. The north and east shores are granite, pine and a scatter of more than a thousand islands. The south shore is lower limestone land with older farms behind it. That split shapes ownership here. Shield and island lots tend to be rockier, more private and often reached by boat, while the southern shore is gentler to build on and easier to reach by road.

What locals call Stoney is really three connected basins. Clear Lake opens up at the Young's Point end, the main Stony basin sits in the middle, and Upper Stoney runs northeast toward the petroglyphs. Upper Stoney is the clearest of the three, with volunteer readings showing water clarity of 6 to 7 metres in 2020. The sheltered middle bays run greener. Cottaging here is old and organized, with associations, a yacht club and island traditions that go back to the 1880s.

Three townships share the shoreline. Douro-Dummer takes in the south side, North Kawartha the north, and Selwyn the western end around Burleigh Falls. Each sets its own zoning, permits and approach to short-term rentals, so confirm which one a property sits in before you fall for the view. The lake also has an unusually strong volunteer network, from the Association of Stoney Lake Cottagers to the Upper Stoney Lake Association, and new owners quickly find themselves invited to regattas, water testing and shoreline projects.

• More than 1,000 islands
• Island cottages
• Granite shoreline
• Trent-Severn boating

History of Stony Lake

People have travelled these waters for thousands of years. Near the east end of the lake, Petroglyphs Provincial Park protects Kinomagewapkong, often translated as the rocks that teach, a rock face carved with hundreds of figures generally dated to roughly a thousand years ago. A prospector rediscovered the site in 1954, the park was created in 1976, and Curve Lake First Nation runs its visitor centre today.

Early settlers knew the water as Salmon Trout Lake. Loggers worked the shores in the mid-1800s, and the Young family at Young's Point later ran steamboat freight and passenger service up the lake. The real cottage era began after the American Canoe Association met on Juniper Island in 1883. Visitors from Ontario and the neighbouring states bought Crown land and built simple frame cottages. Juniper Island gained a store and post office in 1892, a pavilion in 1896, and a steamer waiting station and boarding house in 1911. That boarding house is now the yacht club's headquarters.

The spelling argument is nearly as old as the cottages. Ontario made Stony Lake the official name in 1953, and it covers Clear, Stony and Upper Stoney together. Many local groups still use Stoney. The waterway itself was shaped by Lock 28 at Burleigh Falls, built between 1882 and 1887 and rebuilt as a single concrete lock in 1967. The Highway 28 bridge at Burleigh was finished in 1953. Before road links like that, people crossed the lake by boat in summer and over the ice in winter.

Getting around: Burleigh Falls, Young's Point and the island channels

Stoney sits between two Trent-Severn lockstations. Lock 27 at Young's Point guards the Clear Lake end. Lock 28 at Burleigh Falls, at the west end of the main lake, lifts boats about 7.3 metres up toward Lovesick Lake. Parks Canada warns that the Burleigh entrance is hard to spot when you come up the lake from Young's Point, and asks boaters to slow down and watch for discharge from the dam.

Among the islands the lake becomes a maze of narrow channels and bays. New owners should learn the marked routes first and run slowly until they know their own stretch of water. The Upper Stoney Lake Association runs a #WakeAware campaign asking boaters to cut near-shore wake to protect shorelines and nesting loons.

Clear water in the east, greener bays in the middle

Volunteer testing through the Lake Partner Program shows a real gradient. In 2020, deep sites on Upper Stoney had total phosphorus around 7 to 9 µg/L and water clarity near 7 metres. Gilchrist Bay in the main lake ran higher, with phosphorus between about 12 and 23 µg/L and clarity of about 3 metres. Low-nutrient water from Upper Stoney helps dilute the richer water arriving from the lakes upstream.

Sediment cores taken from Stony Lake show signs of nutrient enrichment over the past two centuries, which researchers link to shoreline development runoff, zebra mussels and more plant growth. Lake associations push natural shorelines and regular septic inspections, and both matter on a lake with this much cottage frontage.

Starry stonewort and other invaders

The Association of Stoney Lake Cottagers calls starry stonewort, an invasive algae that forms dense mats, the biggest risk to the lake. It has taken hold in Gilchrist Bay, Lost Channel, McKenzie Bay and Big Duck Pond. The association's view is that its spread can be slowed but not undone, so cleaning boats and trailers before launching elsewhere matters. LDD moth, formerly called gypsy moth, has also hit the area's trees.

Fishing a mixed warm and cool water lake

When provincial crews netted the Stony Lake system in August 2018, they recorded 18 species. Walleye, muskellunge, smallmouth and largemouth bass, black crappie, yellow perch, rock bass, pumpkinseed and bluegill turned up, along with cisco and rainbow smelt in deeper water. The lake falls in Fisheries Management Zone 17, so check that zone's current seasons and limits before you go out.

Short-term rentals across three townships

Rules depend on the shore you buy on. Selwyn Township does not license short-term rentals, though it says operators can be held responsible for guests, and its noise, burning and parking by-laws still apply. North Kawartha has spent the past two years studying the issue. Its advisory committee finished recommendations in February 2026 and a follow-up staff report to council is planned for late 2026, so new rules may be coming. Douro-Dummer set up a short-term rental advisory committee in 2022, and its by-law list does not yet show a rental licensing by-law. Confirm the current status with the township before counting on rental income.

Services and the villages around the lake

Young's Point, about 25 km north of Peterborough, has marinas, restaurants, a golf course and the Lock 27 lockstation. Burleigh Falls has a public wharf and the Highway 28 crossing. Lakefield and Peterborough are the main stops for groceries, hardware and hospital care. The Otonabee Region Conservation Authority covers the lake's watershed, and lake level readings for the Young's Point gauge are posted on the Trent-Severn Waterway site.