World Cup fans to hike Grouse Mountain, kayak to Toronto Islands for watch parties

TORONTO — Outdoorsy World Cup fans are ready to kayak on Lake Ontario and scale a mountain in British Columbia to make it to prime watch parties.

On Saturday afternoon, fans in Toronto will canoe or hitch a ferry to Toronto Islands to watch Germany take on Ivory Coast as part of a sold-out Destination Canada event.

From there, attendees will kayak along the Olympic Island shoreline to watch the match on a screen from their vessels as it unfolds several kilometres away at Toronto Stadium.

The following weekend, another “natural watch” party will have people taking one of Vancouver’s most popular hiking trails on Grouse Mountain to get to a big screen showing the Panama-England matchup — or opt for the gondola ride included in their ticket.

Destination Canada’s Suzanne Reeves, who is organizing the watch parties, says the tourism organization set them up in spots where dramatic natural landscapes border urban centres.

She says the few hundred tickets for this weekend’s Toronto watch party sold out within a day.

Ottawa will host a natural watch party Wednesday at its urban Lansdowne Park for the Canada-Switzerland game, while soccer fans on the East Coast can turn up to an outdoor viewing the same day at the Halifax waterfront for the Scotland-Brazil contest.

Large LED screens will show the games so that viewers can see the action during daylight hours, with the broadcast facing Toronto kayakers as they float in the lake, Reeves said.

Reeves said that with “all eyes on Canada” during the World Cup, the watch parties will show both locals and tourists the best that the country has to offer.

“It has been such a pleasure to welcome the international community, and it really has helped to enliven the streets,” she said.

She said Canada’s accessible natural landscapes and welcoming residents set the country apart from other World Cup hosts, from the boardwalks and greenery at the Toronto Islands to the Vancouver seascape.

“We really want people coming together and having a real experience, getting to know each other and getting to know Canada,” she said.

“So, fans of the game — we want to convert them to fans of Canada.”

This report by Elissa Mendes, The Canadian Press, was first published June 19, 2026.