Ministers Island

William Van Horne, the American engineer who drove the Canadian Pacific Railway through to the Pacific, built a summer estate on this island from 1891: a fifty-room house, a bathhouse cut into the rock, a windmill and a vast barn where he bred Clydesdales and Dutch cattle. Getting there is the point. A gravel bar connects the island to the mainland and is exposed for a few hours either side of low tide; cars drive across the sea floor and must return before the water covers it, which happens fast enough that vehicles are lost most years. Tide tables are posted and enforced by the operators.

What you actually see

• The tidal crossing - driving over the sea floor on an exposed gravel bar.
• Covenhoven - Van Horne's fifty-room summer house, largely unaltered.
• The circular barn - a large stock barn from the Clydesdale breeding operation.
• The bathhouse - a bathing structure cut into the rock at the shore.

When to go

June to September, and only in the tidal window, which shifts about an hour each day; the operators publish crossing times. Being late means waiting six hours or losing the car.

Honest expectations

The crossing window is unforgiving and vehicles are lost when people misjudge it. The house is sparsely furnished, restoration ongoing. The site closes for winter.

Nearby

St. Andrews lies across the bar; Campobello is south.