Prime Video teen drama ‘Sterling Point’ tackles romance and Muskoka class conflict

TORONTO — Muskoka is having a moment.

The summertime hot spot in Ontario’s cottage country has long been a fixture in film and on TV — including a recent turn in “Heated Rivalry” — but it’s typically dressed up as somewhere else, said director Megan Park.

Not so for “Sterling Point,” the Canadian auteur’s new teen drama series, now available to stream on Prime Video: Muskoka plays itself in the show.

“We … get into the real culture there and the real conflict that’s happening, and can really be in that world,” Park said on a recent video call from her home outside Toronto.

That culture includes tension between the working- and middle-class residents, some of whom live in the community full-time, and the ultra-wealthy vacationers and the developers who court them.

“We talked to a lot of people who have lived there for a long time and had family cottages there and are really experiencing this,” said Park, who created the series and is co-showrunner with “The O.C.” creators Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz.

The series follows 17-year-old New Yorker Annie, played by Ella Rubin, as she learns that she and her twin brother inherited a property in Ontario from her estranged grandfather. When she gets there, she finds Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle) — a stranger who says that actually, the home belonged to her grandfather.

In some ways, Park said, Ramona represents the longtime residents of the area and Annie and her family stand in for the wealthy newcomers.

“A lot of people there that own (properties), they have to leave all summer in order to keep the cottage because the land taxes are getting so expensive that they have to rent it out … so they’re not even getting to enjoy summers at the cottage.”

It’s a side to Muskoka not often seen on screen.

The region is where “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” was shot. “Summer House Canada” is filming there now. Kate Hudson recently spoke about having fond memories of spending summers in Muskoka, and it’s even where “Marvel” star Simu Liu had his bachelor party last week.

But perhaps most notably, Muskoka was propelled into the American mainstream by “Heated Rivalry” as the real-life location of the cottage that launched a thousand memes.

In the universe of the show, the cottage is in Quebec’s Laurentians, but furor over the series meant fans quickly discovered it was filmed at a vacation home in Ontario — which is now available to rent on Airbnb to the tune of $3,000 per night.

Even Park’s first project to shoot in Muskoka, 2024’s coming-of-age film “My Old Ass,” was set in a sort of anonymized version of the region — a “universally beautiful place,” she calls it.

This time, she wanted to dig in.

“Environmentally even what’s happening up there with the new builds going up, it’s a real problem,” Park said, adding that some developers and property owners are uncowed by regulations meant to protect the area.

“Some people are just like… the fees are nothing to me, so I don’t care about blasting out the rock face or tearing down the trees.”

In the show, Annie, who is forging a relationship with the region, is torn between two love interests: the son of a wealthy real estate developer whom she knew back in New York, and a working-class permanent resident of Sterling Point, whose father happens to be her mother’s first love.

So too is she torn between their two versions of Muskoka: the gargantuan, gleaming new builds and the romantically rustic old cottages.

A representative for the Muskoka Lakes Association said the group, which represents landowners in the region, said they didn’t have a position on all the film projects shooting nearby.

They do, however, advocate for “responsible stewardship” of the area, which includes protecting the watershed and ensuring development doesn’t harm the environment.

“I do worry sometimes,” Park said. “I don’t want to add to it if there’s a problem, but the problem up there doesn’t seem to be that there’s too much tourism. It’s more about tearing down the land.”

Ultimately, she said, she wants to represent Canada on screen.

“As a Canadian, I think it’s important for me to try to make as much art here as possible,” Park said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 6, 2026.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press