In Canada, a go to to the seaside would not simply imply ice cream, basking within the solar and a bracing dip within the ocean.
For those who’re fortunate, it may also embrace a bear encounter, a windswept stroll amid driftwood and an opportunity to lob a snowball somewhat than a pebble into the surf.
Relying on the place you might be, the incoming ocean tide will not essentially destroy your sandcastles. With solely six of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories having fun with ice-free entry to open ocean, lots of the nation’s sandiest seashores abut giant freshwater lakes.
Slender down your waterside choices with our information to the perfect seashores throughout Canada.
Commercial
1. San Josef Bay, British Columbia
Finest seaside for wilderness
With a repute for tempestuous climate and difficult entry, northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia excels in wild, lonesome seashores. The 1.6-mile (2.5km) path to San Josef Bay begins on the finish of a 43-mile (70km) unpaved logging highway from Port Hardy. When the forest lastly components, you may be delivered onto a windswept expanse of crashing surf and forested sea stacks the place bushes and bushes have been contorted by fierce Pacific storms.
Planning tip: Deliver a tent and binoculars. You’ll be able to camp proper on the sleek sandy seaside and spy on the resident wildlife, together with eagles and ospreys.
Questioning the place locals go in Canada? Try a few of our writers’ favourite spots.
2. Stanhope Seaside, Prince Edward Island
Finest seaside for avoiding the crowds
The massive, dune-rimmed seaside at Stanhope, on the north shore of Prince Edward Island, sees far fewer vacationers than neighbors like Cavendish Seaside. For a quiet ramble, freed from bustle and bounding canine, head to the boardwalk that traverses the park’s marram-grass dunes, an vital nesting website for the piping plover.
Proceed west, and you will encounter the Covehead Harbour Lighthouse, a white clapboard construction that exudes PEI allure. Monitor east, and you will find yourself at Dalvay by the Sea, a good-looking Queen Anne revival-style resort inbuilt 1895.
3. Wasaga Seaside, Ontario
Finest seaside for swimming
Canada could also be much less recognized for its seashores than for its stupendous nationwide parks or cosmopolitan cities, however it could possibly legitimately declare to own the longest freshwater seaside on the earth.
Wasaga Seaside, within the Ontario city of the identical identify, is an 8.7-mile-long (14km) expanse of soppy sand that kisses the shores of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. The seaside is a part of a provincial park, which means it is geared up with trails and alternatives to identify owls and woodpeckers. Since that is the closest full-fledged seaside resort to Toronto, hundreds of holiday makers pile in each summer season, and the elongated strip can get rowdy.
Planning tip: The sand is break up into six zones. Areas 1 and a pair of are probably the most closely trafficked, 5 is finest for households, and 6 is the one to go to in case you are in search of some house. All have heat, shallow water that is protected for swimming.
Commercial
4. Chesterman Seaside, British Columbia
Finest seaside for browsing
Selecting your favourite seaside in Canada’s browsing capital, Tofino, is like selecting your favourite deluxe sports activities automobile: they’re all ridiculously good. Most surveys checklist Lengthy Seaside at No. 1 as a result of it is, properly, lengthy – however many Tofitians (locals) rank the surfer’s hub of Chesterman as probably the most full scimitar of sand. Ringed by rock swimming pools, islets and a slim sand spit, it is stunning in each early-morning mist and fiery orange-ripple sundown. The browsing, after all, is classy.
Planning tip: Not like Lengthy Seaside, Chesterman is shut sufficient to city to succeed in by bike (along with your surfboard clipped to a particular bike rack) and agency sufficient to cycle on in case you want some leg train earlier than cresting the Pacific waves.
5. Kitsilano, British Columbia
Finest city seaside
Kitsilano is arguably Vancouver’s (and Canada’s) finest city seaside and appears like a freewheeling nugget of Southern California transported 1000 miles north. Backed by cool cafes and a horny park, Kits (because the locals name it) exudes a sporty, laid-back vibe, particularly in summer season.
Seaside volleyball is the sport of alternative, though there are additionally sufficient grassy expanses to unfold out and toss a frisbee or soccer. The yellow arc of sand is sugary and clear, with views throughout the water towards Vancouver’s glass skyscrapers and the North Shore mountains reverse.
Planning tip: If swimming in boat-filled English Bay would not entice you, Kits additionally has an unlimited practically 450ft (137m)-long saltwater pool, one of many largest of its type on the earth.
6. Shallow Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador
Finest seaside for kayaking
The bay is shallow, the seaside lengthy and the sunsets spectacular. This light swathe of sand protected inside the boundary of Newfoundland’s Gros Morne Nationwide Park has a mellow Caribbean really feel – at the very least till you dip your toes within the 59ºF (15ºC) waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence.
Kayaking is a well-liked exercise right here. You’ll be able to forged off from the seaside and navigate the sheltered waters of Belldowns Islands, the place arctic terns nest earlier than endeavor their marathon migration south. Whales can typically be noticed out at sea, and when the climate turns chilly, beachside paths flip into cross-country snowboarding trails.
7. Annette Lake, Alberta
Finest seaside for wildlife
Landlocked Alberta depends on its lakes to entertain summer season beachcombers. Whereas the province has loads of watery escapes to lure the sand-starved, few are as good as tiny Annette Lake in Jasper Nationwide Park, with its forested shoreline, dramatic mountain backdrop and invigoratingly chilly glacial waters. Quick and slim, Annette’s patch of sand is barely the size of a frisbee throw – but this makes for some particular quirks.
Planning tip: That is a type of uncommon seashores the place you would possibly wish to pack some bear spray alongside your blow-up raft: grizzlies are typically noticed within the space. Elk and mule deer present extra innocuous firm.
8. Plage de la Grande Échouerie, Québec
Finest seaside for kitesurfing
Administratively, the Îles de la Madeleine archipelago is in Québec; geographically, it is a lot nearer to the Maritimes. Possessing an astounding 217 miles (350km) of seashores juxtaposed with iron-rich purple cliffs, its pièce de la résistance is that this 6-mile (10km) sweep of pale sand on the Anglophone island of Grosse Île.
Extending northeast from Pointe Outdated Harry into the wetlands of the 1690-acre (684-hectare) East Level Nationwide Wildlife Reserve, Grande Échouerie invitations hours of uninterrupted meditation amid tufted dunes frequented by horned grebe and piping plover.
Planning tip: The archipelago’s stiff winds make it the most effective locations in Canada for kitesurfing or, for the much less athletically inclined, kite-flying.
9. Dunes Seaside, Ontario
The aptly named Sandbanks Provincial Park, a 2.5-hour drive east of Toronto, juts into japanese Lake Ontario, forming the world’s largest bay-mouth barrier dune formation. There are three fabulous seashores right here.
The 2 hottest, Outlet and Lakeshore, face west onto the primary physique of Lake Ontario. A bit quieter and much more attention-grabbing is Dunes Seaside, which abuts the cleaner, calmer waters of sheltered West Lake. Right here, large dunes dotted with bushes and bushes rise steeply from the shore. Whereas most seashores invite relaxation and leisure, Dunes tempts you to indulge in brief, sharp hill climbs earlier than tumbling at full pelt again down into the lake.
10. Parlee Seaside, New Brunswick
Finest seaside for households
With the warmest sea water in Canada and Worldwide Blue Flag certification proclaiming its security, accessibility and environmental credentials, Parlee is way and away New Brunswick’s best seaside, its ribbon of sand comfortable and golden and the water shallow and positively balmy. In excessive summer season, lifeguards patrol in any respect hours, making it a favourite amongst households. Commercialization is stored to a minimal, and grassy dunes buffer a manicured strip of showers, change rooms and poutine-plying spots to eat. The Seaside Boys as soon as performed a live performance at Parlee, which continues to be mirrored within the seaside’s carefree rock’ n’ roll spirit at this time.
Planning tip: Locals within the know save their appetites for the close by lobster capital of Shediac.
