Most teen dramas fake their settings. Sterling Point doesn't. The series, starring Ella Rubin as 17-year-old Annie, who inherits a mysterious Canadian island from an estranged grandfather, was shot almost entirely in the same region where the story unfolds: Ontario's Lake Muskoka, a cottage-country playground about two hours north of Toronto.
That's a rarity in this genre. Shows like Outer Banks and Virgin River film far from their supposed settings, while others invent whole towns. Sterling Point leans on the real thing, and it shows. Lake Muskoka is a hub for recreational boating and floatplane flights, so the lake life on screen isn't set dressing.
Some locations were actually swapped around. Annie's New York family home is a private residence in Toronto's leafy Rosedale neighbourhood, while the city's New York exteriors come from stock footage shot around Brooklyn Bridge Park. When Annie lands in Canada, she meets Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie) at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, the odd little facility on the Toronto Islands that doubles as both a regular airport and a water aerodrome with floatplane charters.
In Muskoka country, Port Carling stands in as the main village. Its Maple Street landmarks, including Duke Boats and the Muskoka Emporium, pop up throughout the series. The busy Sterling Point Marina is Mortimer's Marina in real life, with a small wooden footbridge linking it to Norman Island. The Fawn Lake Camp in episode six is Sparrow Lake Camp, a wooded lakeside retreat near Severn, just south of the main lakes, and the lawyer scene opens with an aerial of Barrie's waterfront on Kempenfelt Bay.
A couple of spots are worth knowing about for fans planning a pilgrimage. The Little Gem Market and Café was actually filmed 50-odd kilometres away at the Copper Kettle Pub in Glen Williams, a restored 1852 general store with fireplaces and locally sourced food, with the Glen Williams Glass workshop appearing as the fictional Algonquin Outfitters. Rory's impressive family mansion is a real 3,500-square-foot boathouse on Sandy Bay, though the gleaming upper storey was added digitally, and that gorgeous round-windowed lakeside sauna? Pure CGI, recycled from a cabin shot in the first episode.
Why should travellers care? Because Muskoka is one of Ontario's classic summer destinations in its own right, and this series is essentially a two-hour drive's worth of free location scouting. You can boat between Port Carling's three lakes, ride a floatplane from the Toronto harbour, and sleep in cottage country without any Hollywood smoke and mirrors.
