Endless summer? Canada's getaway towns embrace year-round living.

Two pre-teen girls shriek as their inner tube cuts a path on the lake. A couple picks up mallets for a croquet game on a nearby lawn. At nightfall around a campfire, a grown man delights children with his best loon call.

It’s a perfect slice of summer, this scene from “cottage country” in Ontario. And across the northern hemisphere, as Labor Day weekend turns, the curtain will come down. Along coasts, seafood shacks will shutter. Canoes and kayaks will be stored. Cars will be packed to the brim and driven away from town centers.

But not everywhere.

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An increasing number of seasonal residents are deciding to live year-round in summer towns, and opening up new businesses, restaurants, and cultural opportunities. A report from the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations (FOCA) showed a significant number already working from their waterfront properties. And more than a third of those surveyed say they’d consider it – which could help to sustain summer vibrancy off-season.

Some have been priced out of the Greater Toronto Area, or, because they are no longer bound to desk jobs, want to opt for quieter lifestyles. And local officials see seasonal visitors beyond their tourist potential, as an untapped resource for community and economic revitalization. Terry Rees, executive director of FOCA, calls it a win-win for rural towns and people who now are calling themselves townspeople. “It offers something different than what is increasingly an urban existence in Ontario,” he says.

Summers at the “cottage” are part of the seasonal ritual for city dwellers across Canada. Tim Wisener spent each of his on one of the 250 lakes and rivers that dot the municipality of Kawartha Lakes, east of Toronto. He still recalls what it felt like when their car made the last turn. “It was freedom at the end of road,” he says. “You had a bicycle, and your mother did not want to see you until dinner.”

Last fall, he and his husband Chris Van Lierop decided to relocate to that cottage, setting up their design company, Home By Tim+Chris, in the town of Fenelon Falls. Their market is other cottagers who want to prepare their properties beyond simply summering, and their growth shows the demand: they’ve expanded to eight employees in a year.

They’ve also joined the chamber of commerce and downtown revitalization committee. Mr. Wisener is working to bring a theater company to Fenelon Falls for a run next summer. This summer they opened a gallery space on the town's main street, in a former radio station and dance studio that were both shuttered.