Casino Hotels · four hotels

Île Notre-Dame ends at its own bank, and that bank is the boundary here. The ground is made ground, laid out for Expo 67 and kept since, so the shoreline is even and deliberate rather than natural. Past it there is nothing but the water of the St Lawrence.

The river is wide and moving fast at this point, and it separates the island from the city on both sides. Montréal reads as a skyline across the water rather than as a street. In winter ice collects along the banks; in summer the channel carries small craft and rowing boats.

The former Expo pavilions were built to be looked out of, and the resort has kept that. Glazed upper levels give onto the water on more than one side, and the restaurants are arranged along those faces. Approach is by bridge, which makes arrival a crossing.

Work out your route onto the island before you travel, because the bridges and the island roads are signed for events.

Ground on this side of Niagara Falls runs to the lip of the gorge and then drops. The resort sits on the high side of that fall, so its boundary is a change in level rather than a wall. The parkland strip along the rim is the last flat ground before the edge.

Below the edge the river turns to spray and noise, and the mist rises high enough to reach the ground above on most days. The far wall of the gorge stands in another country. Weather in that gap behaves on its own terms: it can be clear above and completely white below.

Height is the answer here. The resort was built tall on a rise, with the public rooms and the theatre placed so the gorge side carries the glazing. Nothing is put between the building and the edge except the parkland, which is kept low and open.

Bring a waterproof layer even in summer, since the mist off the gorge carries a long way over the ground above.

Land here ends at a built waterfront with the resort's own marina set into it. The bank is faced and level, with moorings along it, so the line between site and water is drawn by structure rather than by soil. On the far side of that line the Fraser arm begins.

This arm of the Fraser is working water. Tugs, log booms and small boats use it, and the tide moves through twice a day, which changes both the level and the smell of the bank. Across the channel the land is flat, low and given over to the airport and its approaches.

The resort meets the water with a walkway rather than a wall of glass. The promenade runs the length of the site past the moorings, and the hotel block is set back behind it. The concert hall sits on the inland side, where the ground is deeper.

Check which entrance your driver is using, because the waterfront side and the road side of the site are far apart.

The resort occupies part of the lands of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, and its built area ends where the cleared ground does. Car parks, lawns and service roads give out at a treeline, and that line is the edge. It is soft, uneven, and drawn by planting rather than by fence.

Mixed woodland runs on from the treeline, and Lake Couchiching lies beyond it, part of the water system that carries through this part of Ontario. The area is quiet and largely low-built. Winter closes it down to snow and bare branches; in summer the same ground is dense and green.

The resort keeps everything on the inside. The hotel, the concert hall, the spa and the golf ground are laid out so that the woodland closes the view in most directions. Arrival is by road through that woodland, which is what makes the site feel enclosed.

Plan how you will travel back, as the site sits away from town and road options thin out at night.