Area guide · Tobermory village

Little Tub Harbour, where the whole village happens

Tobermory is 2 harbours and only 1 of them has the village wrapped around it. Little Tub is the narrow one, the one the tour boats and the dive boats and the ferry all work out of, with a promenade along the water and everything else within a 5 minute walk of it. Most people treat it as the place they park before doing something else. It rewards an hour of its own, and you should see it twice, once with the boats in and once with them out.

Updated August 20265 minute read

Written by the hosts at Casolena Lakehouse for our guests. Now public for anyone visiting Tobermory.

A moored sailboat with its mast against a deep blue sky in Little Tub Harbour, a Blue Heron Cruises tour boat alongside the far wall
An August morning in Little Tub. The water is flat and the tour boats have not gone out yet.

A working harbour that happens to be pretty

Little Tub is small enough to see all of at once and it is a working harbour. Glass bottom tour boats, dive charters, zodiacs, fishing boats and private sailboats share the same water, and the Chi-Cheemaun comes and goes from her berth at the far end of it through the season. Everything in the village faces this water, and nearly all of it is on Bay Street.

That mix is the appeal. It is not a heritage harbour that has been tidied into a photograph. Boats are being loaded, tanks are being carried and somebody is always reversing a trailer.

Tour boats, dive boats and zodiacs moored along the dock at Little Tub Harbour in Tobermory
The working side. Dive boats, zodiacs and tour boats on the same wall
The marina wall along Little Tub Harbour lined with boats and a Canadian flag, the ferry at the far end
Looking down toward the ferry berth at the end

The walk along the water

A boardwalk and promenade run along the harbour, with benches and planters set back from the edge. It does not go all the way around the water, so you walk out along one side and come back, though you can usually take the upper road for the return rather than retrace the waterfront.

Little Tub Harbour seen from higher ground through trees, with the yellow glass bottom boat, a red tour boat and the village waterfront wrapped around the water
The upper road gives you this on the way back. The whole village is on 1 stretch of water

It is flat, it is short and it is the only walk in the area that does not start at a trailhead, which makes it the one that works with a stroller, with grandparents or after dinner.

Do it in the morning if you want the water still and the boats being made ready, or in the evening when the light is coming across the harbour and the day boats are all back in.

The boardwalk curving around Little Tub Harbour past moored boats on a summer afternoon
The boardwalk side, shaded for most of the afternoon
Benches and flower planters on the upper street above the ferry terminal, looking out over the water
The upper road, where people sit and watch the ferry load

Timing a summer day here

  • Park once and leave the car. Nearly everything is on Bay Street and the village is smaller than it looks on a map. Driving between 2 things here takes longer than walking. The village lots are paid in season but need no reservation, unlike Big Tub at the other end of the harbour.
  • Before 10 is the calm version. The tour boats are loading rather than unloading, the water is flat and you can get a bench.
  • Mid afternoon is the crowded one, when the island boats come back and the day trippers arrive at the same time.
  • Eat before 5:30 or after 8. The dinner rush is real and almost nothing in the village takes bookings. Our where to eat guide works through who is open when.
  • Evening is the best hour and the emptiest. Most visitors drive back south after dinner, which leaves the harbour to whoever is staying.

If you are catching a boat, this is also where you wait. The Flowerpot Island operators both leave from here, and an hour early at Little Tub is not an hour wasted.

An old weathered wooden rowboat resting on the cobble shore near the harbour
The schooner trade left small things behind as well as large ones

Winter, once the fleet comes out

After Thanksgiving the boats come out of the water and spend the winter up on blocks in the harbour lot. The ferry stops sailing in October. Most of Bay Street shortens its hours or closes until spring, and the peninsula goes back to the few thousand people who live here all year.

The harbour does not empty so much as change register. The docks go under snow, icicles hang off the bows of boats that are not going anywhere and the water in the middle often stays open and black all winter, which is a strange thing to stand beside when everything around it is white.

The Blue Heron V tour boat up on blocks in a snow-covered parking lot at Little Tub Harbour under a clear blue sky
February in the harbour lot. The tour fleet winters on blocks
A yellow glass-bottom tour boat buried under deep snow beside Little Tub Harbour
Same lot. There is a glass bottom boat under all that

The harbour lot gets plowed, so there is somewhere to leave the car and something to look at from it. The boardwalk and the docks spend the season under snow, so walk them only if it feels safe.

Little Tub Harbour with its docks and stone wall buried under snow, cedars along the shore
The docks are under there somewhere
Icicles hanging from a snow-covered boat bow with dark open water of Little Tub Harbour directly below
Icicles above, open water below, no ice in between

Come in the afternoon. The light is gone by 5 in January and there is no evening version of the village to move on to. What is open in winter, and what to bring instead, is in our winter guide.

What is around it

  • The boats. Flowerpot Island and the glass bottom cruises leave from the harbour wall. Booking and which ticket to buy are in the island guide.
  • The ferry. The Chi-Cheemaun berths at the far end between sailings and is visible from the whole promenade.
  • The wrecks and the lighthouse. Big Tub is 5 minutes away by car, with 2 schooners lying in a few meters of water at the far end of the harbour, seen from the boats rather than the shore.
  • Dinner and the sweet shop. Both on or a half block off the harbour, covered in the food guide.
  • The dive shops, which rent gear, run charters and give current water conditions for free whether or not you buy anything.
  • The boat launch. The municipal ramp here is the official put-in for Fathom Five, with a launch fee paid at the Harbour Master's Office on Carlton Street.

Opening hours, sailing schedules and winter closures move season to season and are shorter than any website suggests. Call ahead before you drive up for something specific. Trust them over any blog, ours included.

Keep planning

Where to go next

Open-faced smoked salmon toast with avocado, soft egg and microgreens at Green Door Café

Where to eat in Tobermory

Who is open, who closes for winter and the fish and chips question.

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 The white Big Tub Lighthouse above the rocky shore under a summer sky of cumulus clouds

Big Tub Lighthouse

The other harbour, 5 minutes away, and the best sunset within reach of the village.

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 The MS Chi-Cheemaun at her Tobermory berth with the bow door raised, seen from above Little Tub Harbour

The MS Chi-Cheemaun

The ferry that berths at the end of it, and the check-in time that catches people out.

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