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So you didn't inherit a sprawling lakefront compound or mountain retreat. This summer, if you have a cool $30,000 or $40,000 to spend, you can rent the Canadian cottage dream for a month. How about a towering 5,000-square-foot "cottage" perched on the edge of Lake Muskoka? Or maybe an Architectural Digest-worthy chunky log home at Whistler built around a totem pole?

The demand for high-end rentals in the playgrounds of the moneyed classes across the country has been increasing every year, according to rental and real-estate agents who cater to the very wealthy.

Vacation spending has been fuelled in part by a sharp rise in the incomes of the wealthiest Canadians and steep growth in their personal assets, according to recent figures from Statistics Canada.

In British Columbia, rental ski properties are now commanding hefty prices year-round. Houses valued at over $10-million on Blueberry Hill overlooking Whistler Blackcomb are particularly in demand.

One hot B.C. property that's being sought: a house featuring a totem pole rising from the first to third floor.

"You sit on the deck overlooking the golf course and mountains," says Bruce van Mook of Whistler Premier Resort Accommodation, which rents out the home. "It's staggeringly beautiful."

The owners are charging $30,000 a month as a starting price in summer. In ski season, the rate is north of $70,000.

In Ontario, one online listing promotes a new cottage at Trillium Point on Lake Muskoka with six beds, three and a half baths and central air - for $9,900 a week.

Even at these prices, Port Carling, Ont., real-estate agent Paul Heenan says he is "besieged by requests. The cottage rental market is wild."

The three most expensive lakes in the country are in Muskoka: Muskoka, Rosseau and Joseph. Here, renters can mingle with the hockey players, celebrities and jet-setters who take up residence at million-dollar-plus properties each year.

In British Columbia, high-end renters are lured more by the outdoors than the celebrity factor. The totem pole house being rented by Mr. van Mook's agency, with its gourmet kitchen, hot tubs and multiple bedrooms, draws mostly Canadians and U.S. visitors in the summer, many of them still spending money from their dot-com cash-outs. This crowd likes to rock-climb, mountain-bike and hike when they're not gazing at the view, Mr. van Mook says.

In winter, the property lures clients from overseas seeking ski vacations, and willing to pay even steeper prices.

At the Trillium Point house listed at $9,900 a week, there's a daily maid service to sweep away sand tracked in from the 300 feet of beachfront. Cottages like this are clean and in move-in condition when guests arrive, with all appliances and water turned on.

Mr. Heenan, who works for Richard Wallace Real Estate, also rents out one of two cottages he owns in Muskoka. Called Inglenook, the 2,500-square-foot cottage on Lake Rosseau has upscale Adirondack-style interiors that have been featured in Muskoka Magazine and costs $25,000 a month. For that price, renters get a gourmet kitchen lit by an antler chandelier and antiques throughout.

Still, who would throw away tens of thousands of dollars on a rental instead of buying?

Facing higher property taxes and growing maintenance costs, some Ontario cottage owners are finding that the cost of their corner of paradise is just too high. Renters "are the smart ones," says Sheila Givens, owner of Huntsville-based online rental service Cottagesontheweb.com. "Renters don't have to pay the mortgage, the upkeep," she says. "People who own cottages are forever having to work. All fall and winter - I waste my weekends cleaning that cottage."

The unfettered summer experience is so in demand in some parts of the country that, if you don't get your chequebook out early, you'll be out of luck, says Muskoka real-estate agent Brian McElwain of ReMax Muskoka Realty.

"If you don't rent by March or April, you don't get one," he says of properties that can go for $40,000 or more. "There's no use looking today. Some do it at the end of the season the year before."

Those looking to rent are executives "in any corporation, from vice-president on up. Money is not an object."