Welcome to The Otter Guy
We’re more than just a water taxi company! The Otter Guy is Canada’s largest water taxi fleet and the pride and joy of the Inner Harbour. Whether you’re travelling to the island for the day, looking for a boat ride or commuting back and forth on the lake, The Otter Guy is there to meet your needs.
Our driver’s are all Transport Canada certified Captains hired for their great social skills and their focus on safety and customer service. Our deck hands, cashiers and dock handlers are hired through the Canadian Sea Cadet program bringing with them not only experience on the water, but enthusiasm and love for the job.
In addition to the longest passenger dock in the city, we also house the Toronto Marine Safety School where we train commercial marine operators in the off-season in conjunction with Georgian College and Transport Canada. It is The Otter Guy’s way of ensuring that our training and hiring process is of the highest quality.
In the 2020 season, we will be adding Toronto’s only, high-speed electric water passenger service. Our commitment to addressing global warming, a changing environment and a fossil free lake starts with us. Eventually all of our fossil fuel boats will be replaced by green, electric vessels capable of transporting our customers in a safe and quick fashion without the pollution we have grown accustomed to.
Our fleet has 17 boats ranging from standard 12 passenger boats to small and agile 6 passenger boats for special trips. Our larger boats will accommodate up to 100 passengers as we will be upgrading our regularly scheduled service from the Yonge St. Water taxi Terminal to Ward’s Island in the new year as well as expanding our service to include Humber Bay Shores, Ontario Place and eventually Mississauga to our growing points of departure.
The Otter Guy Inc. also works with K-12 schools and several Not-For-Profit organizations to provide educational field trips. To enquire about our field trips, just email us at fieldtrips@otterguy.ca
Finally , our multilingual staff speak over 40 languages. Whether you’re comfortable speaking Urdu, Russian or Mandarin, our multi-lingual staff will do their best to ensure that you will have a safe and fun trip to the best of our parks, the Toronto Islands!
Some visitors will want to go for a boat ride or a skyline photo opportunity, but most visitors use the water taxis to visit the Toronto Islands. The Toronto Islands are Toronto’s version of Central Park in New York City, but with cottage-like homes, beautiful beaches, a wide assortment of events, history and of course nature in all its splendour. Unique restaurants, an amusement park and even a free zoo make this island paradise a wonderful retreat for locals as well as those who have traveled far and wide in anticipation of seeking out the best spots Toronto has to offer.
While many Torontonians take the islands for granted as our own personal 820 acres of parkland, it wasn’t until 1953 when the newly created Metropolitan Toronto Council decided to demolish homes and businesses and turn all of it into parkland. The demolition began in earnest and by the end of the decade, only a few homes at the eastern end of Ward’s Island and on Algonquin Island were all that remained. The City destroyed most of the cottages and homes that had stretched from Hanlan’s Point to the Eastern Gap and the urban centre of this community, replete with such amenities as a movie theatre, a bowling alley, stores, hotels, and dance halls all gave way to the City’s vision of a common ground for everyone to enjoy.
Now the Islands are North America’s largest urban car-free zone. Bicycles rule the day as people travel from island to island with connecting bridges or else they hop aboard convenient water taxis for a relaxing cruise through the canals and lagoons. Every visitor has a feel of being hundreds of miles north of the hustle and bustle of city life, but in reality the Islands are just a mile south of Canada’ largest metropolitan area buffered by the cool waters of Lake Ontario and the Inner Harbour.
Toronto Island Map
