About RLC 

“… a reliance on one's skill and judgement seems to sharpen the appreciation for all the little, but important things of life: food tastes better, clothes are more comfortable, nature takes on a new meaning and living becomes exhilarating.”
R. H. Perry, founding Headmaster

Get in touch

Rosseau Lake College is an independent, co-ed boarding and day school for Grades 7 to 12, in the village of Rosseau in Muskoka, Ontario. We're about two and a half hours north of Toronto. Our 56-acre campus sits at the northern tip of Lake Rosseau, with approximately 3,300 feet of shoreline and forest and trails all around.

Our story

RLC was founded in 1967, Canada's Centennial year, as Rosseau Lake School, a school for boys. Its founders, Roger Morris and Maurice East, and founding Headmaster R. H. Perry drew on the ideas of the educator Kurt Hahn: that students learn best first-hand, as part of a close-knit community, with the natural world as part of the classroom. In 1983, the school became co-educational and took the name Rosseau Lake College.

A historic setting

The campus was once the summer estate of the Eaton family, and much of that history is still part of daily life. The log cabin, once Lady Eaton's sewing room, is now the Head of School's office and boardroom. The old stable is our maintenance building, and the pump house still purifies water and pumps it to campus. Down at the water, our swim dock and pagoda are modelled on the originals from the 1920s and 1930s. Today, outdoor classrooms like Shorelines and our natural amphitheatre sit alongside buildings lined with windows, so the outdoors is never far away.

Small by design

Our size is our greatest advantage. With never more than 150 students, RLC stays close to what researchers call Dunbar’s number, the size at which people can know everyone in their community. The whole school gathers every day for Community Circle, and our sports teams and boarding houses mix students of all ages, so friendships cross grades. Students come from just down the road and from 15 to 20 countries, and there’s room for every one of them to be themselves.

Growing good humans

Our founding Headmaster believed education should develop capable and compassionate young people, and that vision still shapes RLC today. We prepare students for university and college, but that's only part of the job. Guided by the Rosseau Roots, students learn to ask thoughtful questions, take on challenges, work together, and understand their responsibility to their communities and the natural world.

"We need to be building innovators, creators, thinkers, problem solvers, communicators," says Head of School Dave Krocker. "We also need joyful, good people."

Adventure with purpose

Outdoor education at RLC is meant to be challenging. Every September, the whole school heads out on a five-day outtrip, and all year students paddle, sail, and climb, then take to the trails on snowshoes and skis in winter, when our snowboard terrain park opens too. They learn to read the weather, pull their weight, and keep going when it gets hard. That's where real confidence comes from, and it's exactly what our founders had in mind.