Season Finale Runs for the Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas
PBCE closes its 2026 season October 3 with the Kawartha Lakes Fall Run, presented by Birch Point Marina, in support of the Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas
BOBCAYGEON, ON — Performance Boat Club Events Inc. (PBCE) closes its 2026 season on Saturday, October 3 with the Kawartha Lakes Fall Run, a day-long tour of the Trent-Severn Waterway launching from Birch Point Marina in Bobcaygeon. It is the club’s fifth and final event of the year, and it runs for the Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas, a program whose name undersells it: the hampers go out in December, but the work runs all twelve months.Since October 2020, PBCE has donated $173,000 on behalf of the Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas.
The Cause
The Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas began at Fenelon Falls Secondary School, where educational assistant Susan Sainsbury noticed students arriving in the same clothes, or without a lunch, and drew the obvious conclusion about what December looked like in those homes. She has led the program ever since, directing its work and its giving to families in need. In a typical year it reaches roughly fifty families.
The program does not hand out cash. Families are identified quietly, approached privately, and asked what they actually need. Volunteers cross-reference with other local charities so no family is counted twice and none is missed. The hampers — food and gifts both — are delivered by hand in the days before Christmas. It runs year-round on car washes, dances, a Santa day barbecue, and the steady support of local businesses. Between Decembers it covers what a stretched family cannot — a hockey registration, a season of soccer, so a kid does not have to sit out.
It also moves fast when something breaks. Fire tore through the Princess Apartments at Main and Prince on a Thursday afternoon in May 2024, and thirty people from sixteen households lost everything. By that Saturday — two days later — PBCE had donated more than $16,000.
The dinner came first. The Spirit of Christmas Dinner began in 2014 with twenty-four people in a room. By the time the Performance Boat Club sanctioned it, attendance had passed sixty. The boat run was added in 2020, and today the Saturday dinner and auction draw between eighty-five and a hundred.
PBCE is one supporter among many. Birch Point Marina has backed the program since its earliest days, and joined it to the water in 2020 when the Kawartha Lakes Fall Run was created. Donations are directed through the Bobcaygeon Lions Club, which receives the funds on the program’s behalf.
Where to Watch
The fleet runs the Trent-Severn in legs, each one ending at a checkpoint. The full day, start to finish — the public is welcome at any of it. Times are approximate and weather-dependent:
• 8:00 – 9:30 a.m. — Birch Point Marina, Bobcaygeon: boats launch, crews check in
• 10:00 a.m. — the fleet departs Birch Point Marina
• Checkpoint 1 — Fenelon Falls Dam — the fleet runs up to the dam and turns for Bobcaygeon, departing at 10:30 a.m.
• Bobcaygeon Lock 32 / Checkpoint 2 — Green Bay — the fleet arrives at the lock at 11:15 a.m., cycles through in two lifts, and regroups at Green Bay just the other side; away by 12:15 p.m.
• Checkpoint 3 — Buckhorn Locks — a brief touch: in at 12:45 p.m., out at 12:50
• Checkpoint 4 — Great Outdoors Landing, Bridgenorth — the lunch stop and the only real layover of the day, 1:15 to 2:00 p.m.
• 2:00 p.m. — south to Tindle Bay, then the loop back toward Bobcaygeon
• Bobcaygeon Lock 32, again — the fleet cycles back through, 2:40 to 3:45 p.m.
• Checkpoint 5 — Ancona Point — departing the locks at 3:45 p.m.
• 4:15 p.m. — the fleet returns to Birch Point Marina and the run concludes
• 7:00 p.m. — Auction and Awards Dinner, Birch Point Marina
The best of it for onlookers is the lock passage at Bobcaygeon, and it happens twice — 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., then again 2:40 to 3:45 p.m. Each time the fleet cycles through in two lifts over about an hour: boats staged, engines down, close enough to talk to. Lock 32 sits in the heart of downtown Bobcaygeon, with good viewing from either side and most people gathering right at the lock walls — no need to pick a spot in advance, and everything else in the village is a short walk away.
The weekend opens Friday, October 2 with the traditional captain and crew reception and barbecue at Birch Point Marina, 2:00 to 9:00 p.m. Saturday’s auction and awards dinner is where the hands are drawn and the winners named — nothing is decided on the water. The run, the auction and the giving all come down in the same room.
Sponsors
The Kawartha Lakes Fall Run is presented by Birch Point Marina, with the support of PBCE’s 2026 season sponsors: Double R Performance, Edwards Mazda, Hull Life Insurance, Dock Links, MD Marine Insurance, CWM Waste Management, Brett and Sherri Wells, Angels Touch Massage – Paradise Spa and Tanning, BMLE Construction, Nordic Group, Stone Link, C-TOW, Enbridge, TRC Dave Grant, The Gravity Group, Fawcett Excavating, and Seedlink.
“We started the Spirit of Christmas Dinner in 2014, and twenty-four people came to the first one. By the time the Performance Boat Club sanctioned it we were past sixty, and putting twenty to twenty-five thousand a year into the program. Now the dinner and the auction fill the room. This one is close to home — it is the community we live in and run our business in, and the families it helps are our neighbours.”
— Jeff Devolin, President, Performance Boat Club Events Inc.
“People hear ‘Spirit of Christmas’ and think we work one month a year. We are here all twelve. We reach about fifty families, and we could not do that without the Performance Boat Club — whether that is a hockey registration for a kid whose family cannot manage it, or sixteen households who lost everything in an afternoon.”
— Susan Sainsbury, Kawartha Lakes Spirit of Christmas
NOTE: Accommodation is first come, first serve. Based on availability.
