Vacationing like Canada’s rich and royal on the lakes of Muskoka

She began to rent out the cottages of other owners, rapidly expanding and growing both her business and her reputation as a hands-on, savvy businesswoman with a warm heart. In less than five years, Jayne was featured in numerous publications, including Forbes, and in 2019 she was crowned winner of the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award in the Start-Up category.

The view from the deck of one of Jayne's luxury cottages in Muskoka. (Photo: Jayne's Luxury Rentals)[Missing Credit]

A grandmother in her early sixties, Jayne looks like a goddess living her best life. To me she is part Doris Day and part Bond-Girl Honor Blackman, with just a dash of Joan Collins. When I picture Jayne, I picture her driving us around the lakes in her boat, effortlessly elegant in a tennis dress and kitten heels, pointing out the innumerable cottages and islands she rents or where the celebrities like to frolic.

First though, she helped us understand that a Canadian cottage is not a cottage as we know it. A Muskoka lakeside cottage can be the size of a large house or a grand, stately mansion; the average one Jayne rents out has five bedrooms and can comfortably sleep ten, and most come with plush boathouses which have additional bedrooms and living quarters.

The interior of one of the luxury cottages offered for vacationers in Muskoka. (Photo: Jayne's Luxury Rentals)[Missing Credit]

Jayne happily chatted to us about the people who have rented from her but was reticent about revealing some famous names. Apparently (and for me, disappointingly) you can’t sell a holiday to rich celebrities and nobility, offering them privacy and seclusion, and then tell everyone they’re there.

When our small UK group landed in Toronto, we met up with other travel writers from Dubai, the US and Canada and spent a night at the Ritz-Carlton, where we had supper and cocktails, courtesy of the hotel, at the EPOCH Bar and Kitchen. We were treated to a taster of the new summer menu, much of which I couldn’t eat because I am a picky, pesky pescatarian, but the sushi nachos were sublime, and the waitress kindly brought me out some crabless stuffed avocado.

Kayaks, canoes and paddle boards are available for vacationers on the lake in Muskoka, Canada. (Photo: Muskoka Tourism)[Missing Credit]

The next morning, after a calm, club-lounge breakfast with a view of the CN Tower, we each received the most amazing 90 minute ‘Jet Lag Revival’ treatment in the hotel’s luxury spa. I decided that this is who I was from now on: a woman who has a sophisticated breakfast at the Ritz without jostling for the last bit of smoked salmon with 800 other Jews in a Kosher-for-Pesach hotel buffet, and has a long massage with an exfoliating back-scrub and hot stones, ‘recovers’ in the sequestered spa sanctuary and then gracefully receives a Clarin’s gift bag – rather than taking a furtive dip in the pool when the rabbis weren’t looking, and then being told off by her mother. 

We were supposed to have a tour of the Ritz’s ‘cheese cave’, guided by its chef, but it was undergoing refurbishment so we couldn’t. I was particularly disappointed about this because I love cheese and also, of course, it was Shavuot, and therefore it was my duty to consume as much of the cheese in the cave as possible. Had someone warned them I was coming or was it really a coincidence it was shut when I was there?

After lunch at the hotel, where we first met Jayne, she drove us to the Billy Bishop Airport to fly in a tiny, six-seater seaplane – at a height of 3,500ft – to the actual private dock of the cottage where we would stay.

The pilot appraised us carefully, deciding where best to safely seat us, even though I’d already been asked to submit, by email, confirmation of my weight (literally, one of the worst emails of my entire life). The two smallest women had to squeeze into the back. Two others went into the middle and, luckily, I was chosen to sit at the front for our epic 90-minute journey over the lakes.

An aerial view of the lakes and islands of Muskoka, a popular holiday destination for the affluent. (Photo: Muskoka Tourism)[Missing Credit]

Unfortunately, whilst climbing into the plane ahead of the pilot, my dress flew up to my waist and exposed my entire bottom right in front of his face. I fell into the plane screaming, excruciatingly embarrassed, all sense of harmony and wellbeing from the spa treatments whipped away in a single gust of dress-lifting wind. I’m still not sure if the nausea I felt the entire journey in that seaplane was from travel-sickness or from humiliation.

But it didn’t take much time at the large, homely cottage to feel restored to serenity.

We were greeted by a few of Jayne’s permanent staff, who presented us with a delicious blueberry wine, a well-stocked drinks fridge and a generous charcuterie box of meats, grapes and cheeses. I was a bit limited with what I could eat from the box but, had this been a party of all kosher or vegetarian guests, Jayne would have surely organised a more suitable welcome box of treats. And, luckily, I had brought my own non-gelatinous marshmallows in anticipation of the evening we would be toasting marshmallows and s’mores by the campfire.

All the food in Muskoka’s eateries was delicious and presented beautifully, but they weren’t all that clued-up about vegetarians. At one meal, although I said I don’t eat meat, my fish was served to me with a maple and bacon sauce. The waitress was baffled when I said I couldn’t have it and insisted that the meat was ‘only a sauce’, but she eventually exchanged it for a cheese-based sauce.

Misha on the front steps of her luxury cottage rental from Jayne's Luxury Rentals.[Missing Credit]

The desserts we had at Turtle Jacks in Port Carling were insane. Cheesecakes of all flavours came out for us all to share, and they were so delectable that I couldn’t stop myself eating most of them. But, don’t forget, I had no choice: I’d been robbed by the lack of cheese cave at the Ritz-Carlton and it was still Shavuot.

At another venue where we stopped for a casual lunch in Port Carling, there wasn’t much on offer for vegetarians. I opted for the Canadian special of poutine, which is chips with cheese and gravy, but the gravy in this particular cafe was made with meat. Kosher and vegetarian travellers, be cautious. Jayne told me that a huge proportion of her guests are Jewish – an amazing 50 per cent, by her estimation – but she would like to increase her Jewish market even further. A wider selection of kosher and vegetarian food options would be a good place to start.

Misha Mansoor tries stand-up paddle boarding on the lake in Muskoka.[Missing Credit]

As far as the cottages go, I can’t really convey to you just how plush and opulent some of them were. One of them, where I’m allowed to say music mogul Drake stayed, has a bath in the master-bedroom ensuite with no visible taps. To fill the giant stone beast, water magically cascades from concealed taps in a beam from the ceiling like a waterfall.

This cottage in particular, if you’re interested, will set you back over $100,000 Canadian per week (and don’t forget the add-ons). All of Jayne’s cottages have optional extras of private chefs, drivers, yoga teachers, concierge assistance and a host of other helpful services, and many are fortunately more affordable.

A room with a view: the bedroom of a cottage in Muskoka overlooks the woods and the lake. (Photo: Jayne's Luxury Rentals)[Missing Credit]

Whilst Jayne showed our awestruck group around this palace of a cottage, with three floors and every room overlooking the lake, including an enormous games room and gym, I stood transfixed by that bath with magic ceiling taps and remembered the time when an old pipe in my house burst, the ceiling partly fell down and water gushed down from the broken pipe. If only I’d thought of sticking a bath underneath it…

There were so many magical moments in Muskoka: boating; spotting moose and deer as we drove through the winding woods; an early morning yoga session on our dock with the wonderful Anita; the hilarious moment when my colleague asked me to photograph her back whilst she faced the lake and briefly went topless at just the exact moment a boat full of fishermen appeared out of a mist; and the joy I had trying SUP (stand-up paddle) for the first time.

The worst moment of Muskoka? Having to leave it behind. I will forever be wishing I could go back.

Honestly, chaval al hazman. If you have both the money and time then I promise you that neither will be going to waste, so long as you spend both in Muskoka.