Ontario
Roof top tents in Ontario
Ontario gives Canadian residents the most generous Crown-land allowance in the country — 21 days on one site — and charges non-residents by the night for the same ground north of the French and Mattawa Rivers.
Getting it to Ontario
Southern Ontario is the densest freight market in the country and the cheapest place for us to deliver a crated tent. The Golden Horseshoe, Ottawa and London–Windsor are all direct.
Northern Ontario is a different quote on the same province. Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Timmins are served, but the leg from a terminal to an address up Highway 11 or 17 is long and is priced as such — and this matters more here than elsewhere, because the Crown land you are allowed to camp on for 21 days is mostly up there, not down here.
We do not publish a flat delivery rate for this province, and we are not going to invent one. A crated roof top tent is freight, not a parcel. Order first — nothing is charged — then message WhatsApp +1 672-203-4941 with your order number and postal code. We confirm stock and the exact delivery cost to your address, and only then do the payment details go out. See delivery and how to pay.
Ask for a delivery quote on WhatsApp
Where you can legally sleep in it
Ontario publishes the most generous rule in the country for its own residents. Camping for private, non-commercial purposes is allowed on Crown land for up to 21 days on any one site per calendar year, after which you must move at least 100 metres. No permit, no fee.
Non-residents are treated differently, and precisely: a permit is required to camp on Crown land north of the French and Mattawa Rivers, at $10.57 per person per night including HST. There are exemptions — renting your camping unit from an Ontario business, owning property in Ontario, or working in Canada — and residency is defined in regulation as Canadian citizenship or having actually resided in Canada for at least seven of the preceding twelve months.
Two rules catch roof-tent owners in particular, because a roof tent travels with the vehicle: camping is not allowed on roads, trails or parking lots, and signed areas can restrict camping or shorten the day limit. Check the parcel on the Crown Land Use Policy Atlas first.
Where these rules come from
- Ontario — recreational activities on Crown land
- Ontario — non-resident Crown land camping
- Ontario — non-resident Crown land camping and green zones
How long your season actually is
Toronto has the mildest camping shoulder season of any inland station in this table: an average of one freezing night in May and four in all of October. On that evidence a three-season tent covers almost the entire Ontario season in the south, and spending extra on insulation is hard to justify honestly.
Sudbury is here because that is where the 21-day Crown land allowance actually is. Four freezing nights in May and twelve in October — three times Toronto’s autumn exposure. The upsell question in Ontario is not really about the province; it is about whether you drive north of Georgian Bay in the shoulder months.
Toronto (YYZ) — 30 years of record
| Month | Typical overnight low | Nights at freezing or below |
|---|---|---|
| April | 1.9 °C | 10 |
| May | 7.4 °C | 0.9 |
| June | 12.9 °C | none |
| July | 15.8 °C | none |
| August | 15.1 °C | none |
| September | 10.8 °C | 0.2 |
| October | 4.6 °C | 4.1 |
Sudbury — 30 years of record
| Month | Typical overnight low | Nights at freezing or below |
|---|---|---|
| April | −1.7 °C | 19 |
| May | 5.2 °C | 4.3 |
| June | 10.7 °C | <0.1 |
| July | 13.4 °C | none |
| August | 12.4 °C | none |
| September | 7.8 °C | 1.1 |
| October | 1.7 °C | 12 |
Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010, via the ECCC Climate Normals API. “Typical overnight low” is the mean daily minimum temperature for the month; the last column is the average number of nights in that month when the minimum reached 0 °C or below. These are long-run averages for one weather station, not a forecast for your campsite, and elevation moves them more than latitude does.
Pickup and installation
No pickup point and no install partner in Ontario. Everything ships.
Start with the roof, not the tent
Wherever you are in Canada, the binding number is your vehicle’s dynamic roof load — what the manufacturer allows while you are driving — and the bars count toward it on many vehicles. Static load, the figure that covers you and your passengers asleep up there, is usually three to five times higher, which is why the people in the tent are not the constraint.
Check your vehicle against the published figures first: will it fit? — and if your vehicle is not in the table yet, say so on WhatsApp and we will tell you honestly that we do not have a manufacturer figure for it rather than guess at one.
- Roof top tents — the full range
- Hard shell tents — fastest to set up, heaviest on the roof
- Four-person and family tents
- Crossbars and cargo boxes
- Truck bed tents and SUV and car tents