Three dates close out the 2026 navigation season on the Trent-Severn, and only one of them is being talked about. September 7 is the last day of free lockage. September 8 is the one that will actually rearrange your days. October 12 is the end.
Most of the coverage stops at the fee. The fee is the least of it. The same date that brings lockage charges back also cuts a weekday lock day from 8.5 hours to 5.5 — and a boat that can only lock for five and a half hours does not get where it was going to get.
September 7 — the last day of free lockage
The Canada Strong Pass has covered lockage for every registered vessel since June 19. You pulled into your first lockstation, staff handed you a free lockage sticker, and that was the whole transaction. It ends on Labour Day, Monday September 7, and that last day is a long one — 9:00 in the morning to 6:30 at night, the extended holiday schedule.
One thing worth clearing up, because it caught people out all season: mooring was never included. The pass covered lockage only. A night on a lock wall has been full price since June and still is. Shore power, third-party services, charts and parking were never in it either.
September 8 — the hours are the real change
From September 8, lockage is a paid service again. It is worth being precise about what that means, because the framing everywhere else is wrong: the fees do not go up. Nothing is being raised. The free period simply ends and the standing fee schedule resumes, unchanged.
Parks Canada prices lockage by the foot of vessel:
- One day — $2.25 per foot
- Six days — $6.50 per foot
- One-way transit through the whole system — $6.00 per foot
- Seasonal, recreational — $11.25 per foot
- Lock-and-return — $1.50 per foot
Mooring is priced the same way: $1.50 per foot overnight, or $12.25 per foot seasonal. On a 30-foot boat that works out to $67.50 to lock for a day and another $45.00 to tie up for the night.
Now the part that matters more. Through the summer, Monday to Thursday ran 9:00 to 5:30 and Friday through Sunday stretched to 6:30. From September 8, Monday straight through Friday is 10:00 to 3:30. That is a 5.5-hour day — three hours shorter than a summer weekday and four hours shorter than a summer Friday. Weekends hold up better at 9:00 to 4:30.
Run the arithmetic on your own passage before you commit to it. A day that comfortably carried you through a flight and on to the next village in July will not do it in October, and the place you meant to tie up may be an hour past where the clock stops.
Two things most boaters get wrong
You cannot buy a lockage permit online. Not at any point in the 2026 season. They are sold in person, at any lockstation, when you arrive. Seasonal mooring passes are the exception — those you can still buy online, and the distinction between the two is exactly where people get caught.
You can upgrade and pay only the difference. If you buy day permits and then decide to keep going, you can move up to a seasonal permit at any time during the shoulder season and pay the gap, not the full price. Keep every receipt — that is the only thing that qualifies you. The shoulder seasons this year run May 15 to June 18 and September 8 to October 12.
Mobile crews change how you arrive
There is an operational change in the shoulder season that nobody warns you about. Rather than staff standing at every station, Parks Canada has used mobile crews on weekdays through the spring and fall — one crew covering as many as three lockstations, moving boats through in groups rather than on arrival. Parks Canada does not commit to it running every weekday at every grouped station, so treat it as likely rather than certain and plan the call below into your day.
On the Trent Canal down toward Lake Simcoe, Lock 38 Talbot and Lock 39 Portage work as one grouping, and Lock 40 Thorah and Lock 41 Gamebridge work as another.
Every grouped station is signed with a phone number. Call it and staff will give you an estimated lockage time. That call is the difference between a planned stop and an hour of guessing at the blue line — and in a 5.5-hour day, an hour is a large fraction of everything you have.
The larger stations still run service on arrival, including the Peterborough Lift Lock, Kirkfield and Big Chute.
Last lockage is stricter than it sounds
One rule carries more weight in the fall than at any other time of year. Last lockage means you have already arrived at the designated blue zone when the clock reaches it. Not approaching. Not around the corner with the station in sight. Swing bridges make one final swing ten minutes after last lockage, and then they are finished for the day.
In July, missing it cost you an evening. With a 3:30 weekday close, a late arrival is not a short wait — it is an overnight, and possibly not where you wanted to spend one. Lockstation access is prohibited between 10:00 at night and 6:00 in the morning, so an unplanned stop is a committed one.
October 12 — and then the season is over
Thanksgiving Monday, October 12, is the final operating day of the 2026 navigation season. It runs on the weekend schedule, 9:00 to 4:30. After that the locks stop for the winter, and anything still above them stays there until spring.
If you have a boat to move, count backwards from October 12 — and count using fall hours, not the summer ones still in your head. There are only a handful of weekends left where the day is long enough to make up ground, and Lock 45 Port Severn at the Georgian Bay end is a long way from Trenton in 5.5-hour days.
For anyone running the Canadian leg of the Great Loop, this is the window that decides whether you finish the Trent-Severn this season or winter above it. The AGLCA forums fill with the same question every autumn, and the answer is always the same arithmetic: hours, not fees.
Where these numbers come from
Every date, time and fee above is from Parks Canada and was current on August 30, 2026. Hours and fees change, and a season-end schedule is exactly the kind of thing that gets amended — confirm before you travel, either with the source pages below or with your lockstation directly.
- Parks Canada — Trent-Severn hours of operation
- Parks Canada — fees
- Parks Canada — Canada Strong Pass
- Parks Canada — shoulder season and mobile crews
Live water levels and navigational warnings for the run home are on our water levels and Sécurité pages, both updated automatically.