Port Dalhousie was originally the Lake Ontario end of the first Welland Canal, until later canals were realigned to bypass it. The harbour basin and the pair of nineteenth-century lighthouses on the protective moles are what remain, and the village around them has settled into a pleasant lake-edge district of pubs, ice-cream parlours, and the small Lakeside Park beach.
The Lakeside Park Carousel still runs original 1898 wooden horses at the long-standing nickel-a-ride price. The Henley Regatta — the largest rowing event in North America — uses the long course along the canalised Twelve Mile Creek nearby. The whole village is about a 15-minute drive north of downtown.