Another Hot Topic: Beaches

It’s the Maritimes, eh? There is a lot of water and people love “the beach” whatever that may mean to them. I used to love to go to the north shore of PEI in the winter, well bundled against the wind, for the emptiness and the creaking of ice moving with the tide. Another favourite used-to was gathering mussels off our own property for supper. The clamming was impressive there too, soft shell, not bar clams, which are quahogs no matter what anyone says and tough as shoe leather. The trouble with clams is that they live in the sand and are gritty so you can’t eat them right away. They have to have 24 hours in seawater and oatmeal to spit the sand out, like a self cleaning oven. There were millions of clams on our beach squirting us with every step. We lived on a river estuary, about 1 kilometer across and shallow enough that the water got warm in the summer and we also had fun mud flats at low tide. I once counted 39 heron fishing within eye sight. Not being at all interested in the yacht club lifestyle we had two tiny sailboats moored on the beach, one a Mistral and the other a catamaran, and the water was warm enough to wade or swim out to the boats when we wanted to use them. No commitment no hassle sailing, with miles of waterway on our doorstep. In the fall we took down the masts and hauled the boats up on the lawn; easy peasy. 

I’ve drifted away from the beach topic, not quite becalmed but not on course.

PEI has miles of accessible beach, most of it low bank, and all of it a variation on the red sandstone. The most famous beaches, the north shore on the Gulf of St Lawrence, are pale pink even though typically branded as “white sandy beaches” and some areas have fantastic dunes. The south shore beaches, on the Northumberland Strait, are darker red and the sand is coarser. “Up west” and “down east” beaches might be the actual best because they are transitional with enough sand for lounging but warmer water than the Gulf.

Cavendish cliffs

Stanhope Cape

Victoria By The Sea, PEI

 The only other place that I’m aware of with warm water is the Strait side of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Once you move close to the Atlantic, the water is bone-aching cold unless you find a beach that is shallow enough to allow the sun to warm the tidal flats and then the water. Right now we are about a kilometer from Queensland Beach, south of Halifax, and there were lots of people in the water yesterday. Not me!

A few years ago we kayaked out to some small granite islands near Terence Bay, NS, to what is referred to as the Canadian Caribbean which was quite spectacular.

The summer beach season is short and many Maritimers are religious about their beach time, storing up sun and memories for the colder days. The PEI government goes on summer hours to extend employee leisure time, and no one really expects much to get done in the summer. Work is for winter, in fact there used to be a government employment “Winter Works Programme”. Obviously my experience is all PEI, but in our travels we have managed to visit a few other beaches many of which are of gravel or the UK word, shingle. You need a chair to lounge on these beaches, can’t just dig out a depression in the sand for your butt. But beautiful all the same....

Grand Manan Island, NB

Hopewell Rocks, NB

Queensland Beach, NS

Queensland Beach, NS