Last summer, Dave Murray pumped what was left of the gasoline at his dockside station into his boat, and closed the valve on the gas tank for the last time.
Fifty-eight years after opening Nahma Lodge Marine on Balsam Lake, northwest of Peterborough, Ont., Mr. Murray is out of the gas business for good.
Squeezed by a combination of price-conscious buyers and the cost of keeping up with safety and environmental standards, many marina operators in Ontario's cottage country are closing down their fuel pumps, leaving some boaters with little choice but to lug gasoline to the water in jerry cans.
"We're having a terrible dilemma with it right now," said Al Donaldson, executive director for Boating Ontario, an association of marine operators.
Mr. Donaldson said he's seen dozens of marinas close their gas bars in recent years, and knows of at least 20 more operators who are seriously considering doing the same now.
Despite a slow start to Ontario's boating season driven by rainy weather, marina operators say there's no reason to think there will be fewer boaters on the water this summer than in previous years. Soaring gas prices - which reached new highs in May - don't seem to be a deterrent so far for people who spend their summers on the water.
But seeing the difference between the price of gas on the highway and the price on the lake can give some boaters pause.
Marina gas typically costs at least 10 cents more than gas sold on the road - and sometimes much more than that - a premium operators say they need to charge to cover the cost of transporting gas to the water, paying an attendant to pump it, and, in most cases, buying gas that does not contain ethanol, which boaters say damages their engines.
Gas bars also face the ongoing cost of repairing and upgrading old equipment to remain in compliance with rules set by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, which oversees fuel suppliers in Ontario.
While the rules governing marine gas operators haven't changed in recent years, Mr. Donaldson said he believes they are being enforced more strictly than they once were. And as operators' equipment gets too old to meet the standards, the cost of replacing it can be prohibitive for some.
Peter Johnston, co-owner of Ed Huck Marine Ltd. in the 1,000 Islands region, spent about $20,000 upgrading the pipes for his gas bar last year.
"There are a lot of capital costs that go with trying to keep up with the safety standards," he said. "Which is all good. If you're pumping gas around the water, you want those."
But a growing number of inland marina operators seem to be making the same calculations Mr. Murray made last year.
"My bookkeeper said, 'Why are you selling gas? You aren't making a cent off it,'" said Mr. Murray, who still offers winter boat storage and runs a store. "Finally, I just decided that, after all those years, there was just too much red tape and risk."
Jim Killer, who operates Killer's Cove Marina on Harrison Lake, east of Vancouver, said his gas bar doesn't make him enough money to justify the expense of maintaining it.
"Right now I'm in the position of applying for more moorage," he said, adding that if he gets enough to compensate for the gas he sells now, he'll likely leave the fuel business behind. His gas bar is the only one on Harrison Lake.
Fred Pohler, owner of Freddy's Marine Services north of Trenton, Ont., said he considered installing gas pumps a few years ago at his marina on the Trent-Severn Waterway, but balked when he heard it would cost upwards of $100,000 to install and license the pumps with the TSSA. "It was really too much money to invest, personally," he said.
It's about a 25-kilometre ride along the river from Mr. Pohler's marina to reach the next gas bar.
Where gas isn't readily available on the water, or when boaters want to avoid paying higher prices at a marina, they pick it up at roadside stations.
It's less common to find big marinas on Alberta's southern lakes, so most people haul their boats around on trailers and fuel them up while they're getting gas for their cars, said Greg Beauchamp, who owns Alberta Marine, which sells and services boats.
In Ontario's cottage country, where many people leave their boats on the water, boaters often fill up jerry cans at a roadside station, haul them down to the water and pour the gas into the tanks themselves.
On Balsam Lake, Mr. Murray estimates at least half of his former customers have switched to transporting gas in jerry cans to avoid the six-kilometre trip to the closest marine gas station.
But the practice has some people worried about environmental consequences. While gas attendants are trained to handle hazardous materials and usually have spill prevention kits on hand, "none of that exists when a boater takes five jerry cans down to the dock and starts putting [gas]in a boat," said Mr. Donaldson of Boating Ontario.
Mike Hendren, executive director of Kawartha Heritage Conservancy, said he knows from experience with his own boat that it's not easy to pour from a jerry can without spilling. "It's definitely an issue," he said. "We'd much rather see people filling up at the marina gas stations than [using jerry cans]"
Mr. Murray says he's taken a little flak from local boaters for his decision to close, but adds, "When I tell them why, most of them say, 'If I was in your position, I would have done the same thing.'"
But there are some traditions Mr. Murray and his wife, Aileen, aren't yet prepared to give up. They're still selling little brown bags of candy to the local kids - they just see a few less of them now that their fuel pumps are empty.