Beloved beach and park at P.E.I.'s Basin Head voted one of Canada's best 10 vacation spots

Thinh Nguyen · CBC News

· Posted: May 03, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 22 minutes ago

When Ottawa nonmigratory Lana Gauthier visited P.E.I. past summertime with her family, she was told she had to cheque retired the formation astatine Basin Head Provincial Park.

"We went connected a Monday, and we loved it truthful much, we went again connected the Friday," Gauthier told CBC's Island Morning.

"We tracked the tide, truthful we knew the tides would beryllium precocious connected the Monday and debased connected the Friday. And each clip was wholly different."

Gauthier  was truthful taken with the parkland that she recommended it to CBC's The Current, which was gathering a Canadian question usher based connected listeners' recommendations. More than 2,000 suggestions poured successful from crossed the country.

With astir 50,000 votes, Basin Head landed connected the database of the apical 10 destinations.

For Gauthier, 1 of the beach's astir unsocial features is its Singing Sands — a nickname based on the precocious silica contented successful the sand, which makes the beach squeak erstwhile you locomotion connected it.

"Even conscionable the information that the soil makes sound erstwhile you measurement connected it is just, successful itself, an astonishing thing. We sat connected the sandbars and conscionable fto the waves interaction us. The h2o was truthful warm," she said.

"We looked for rocks. We walked on an expansive agelong of beach, and we saw the shipwreck with crabs connected it. Our canine got to aquatics successful the water astatine Basin Head. We took large household photos with the reddish cliffs down us. We got crystal cream."

More than conscionable a beach

The parkland is besides location to the Basin Head Fisheries Museum, which shares the communicative of P.E.I.'s inshore sportfishing industry. The depository includes the archetypal gathering of a historical food cannery and has displays and exhibits that bring the past to life.

Matthew McRae, enforcement manager of the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation, said the depository is the second-most visited successful the foundation's web of 7 sites.

Together with its acquisition shop, it draws much than 20,000 visitors each year, retired of the 60,000 to 70,000 who sojourn the provincial parkland each summer, helium said.

McRae said the instauration is moving with national and provincial governments connected a caller interpretive program that volition archer a much broad communicative of the site.

"The Basin Head depository is 50 years aged now, truthful however bash we archer the story — since a batch has happened successful 50 years, to the fisheries, to Basin Head, to everything?" helium said.

"We privation to marque definite that we're linking up those antithetic stories, the Singing Sands, the beach, the cannery that is down determination connected the waterfront, which was an operating cannery successful the 20th century."

A important portion of that communicative is the park's marine protected country — 1 of lone 14 successful Canada, and 1 of the fewer accessible by land.

"It has a unsocial ecosystem that doesn't beryllium anyplace other connected P.E.I. oregon the world, and that includes a peculiar taxon of Irish moss that's lone recovered successful the basin astatine Basin Head," McRae said.

As portion of the caller interpretive plan, the instauration has worked with respective partners, including the Souris and Area Branch of the P.E.I. Wildlife Federation, the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association, and members of P.E.I.'s Indigenous communities.

"We're conscionable successful the stages of preparing that interpretive program study that we'll hopefully usage past to commencement making changes to the site," McRae said.

This summer, the depository volition connection peculiar guided tours that instrumentality visitors from the basin to the formation to the museum. The Mi'kmaq Heritage Actors volition besides instrumentality to perform.