10 of the best beaches in Canada

In Canada, a visit to the beach doesn't just mean ice cream, basking in the sun and a bracing dip in the ocean.

If you're lucky, it might also include a bear encounter, a windswept walk amid driftwood and a chance to lob a snowball rather than a pebble into the surf.

Depending on where you are, the incoming ocean tide won't necessarily destroy your sandcastles. With only six of Canada's 13 provinces and territories enjoying ice-free access to open ocean, many of the nation's sandiest beaches abut large freshwater lakes.

Narrow down your waterside options with our guide to the best beaches across Canada.

1. San Josef Bay, British Columbia

Best beach for wilderness

With a reputation for tempestuous weather and tricky access, northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia excels in wild, lonesome beaches. The 1.6-mile (2.5km) trail to San Josef Bay starts at the end of a 43-mile (70km) unpaved logging road from Port Hardy. When the forest finally parts, you'll be delivered onto a windswept expanse of crashing surf and forested sea stacks where bushes and trees have been contorted by fierce Pacific storms.

Planning tip: Bring a tent and binoculars. You can camp right on the smooth sandy beach and spy on the resident wildlife, including eagles and ospreys.

Wondering where locals go in Canada? Check out some of our writers' favorite spots.

2. Stanhope Beach, Prince Edward Island

Best beach for avoiding the crowds

The huge, dune-rimmed beach at Stanhope, on the north shore of Prince Edward Island, sees far fewer tourists than neighbors like Cavendish Beach. For a quiet ramble, free of bustle and bounding dogs, head to the boardwalk that traverses the park's marram-grass dunes, an important nesting site for the piping plover.

Continue west, and you'll encounter the Covehead Harbour Lighthouse, a white clapboard structure that exudes PEI charm. Track east, and you'll end up at Dalvay by the Sea, a handsome Queen Anne revival-style hotel built in 1895.

3. Wasaga Beach, Ontario

Best beach for swimming

Canada may be less known for its beaches than for its stupendous national parks or cosmopolitan cities, but it can legitimately claim to possess the longest freshwater beach in the world.

Wasaga Beach, in the Ontario town of the same name, is an 8.7-mile-long (14km) expanse of soft sand that kisses the shores of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. The beach is part of a provincial park, meaning it's equipped with trails and opportunities to spot owls and woodpeckers. Since this is the closest full-fledged beach resort to Toronto, thousands of visitors pile in every summer, and the elongated strip can get rowdy.

Planning tip: The sand is split into six zones. Areas 1 and 2 are the most heavily trafficked, 5 is best for families, and 6 is the one to go to if you are looking for some space. All have warm, shallow water that's safe for swimming.

4. Chesterman Beach, British Columbia

Best beach for surfing

Choosing your favorite beach in Canada's surfing capital, Tofino, is like choosing your favorite deluxe sports car: they're all ridiculously good. Most surveys list Long Beach at No. 1 because it's, well, long – but many Tofitians (locals) rank the surfer's hub of Chesterman as the most complete scimitar of sand. Ringed by rock pools, islets and a narrow sand spit, it's beautiful in both early-morning mist and fiery orange-ripple sunset. The surfing, of course, is sublime.

Planning tip: Unlike Long Beach, Chesterman is close enough to town to reach by bike (with your surfboard clipped to a special bike rack) and firm enough to cycle on if you need some leg exercise before cresting the Pacific waves.

5. Kitsilano, British Columbia

Best urban beach

Kitsilano is arguably Vancouver's (and Canada's) best urban beach and feels like a freewheeling nugget of Southern California transported 1000 miles north. Backed by cool cafes and an attractive park, Kits (as the locals call it) exudes a sporty, laid-back vibe, especially in summer.

Beach volleyball is the game of choice, although there are also enough grassy expanses to spread out and toss a frisbee or football. The yellow arc of sand is sugary and clean, with views across the water toward Vancouver's glass skyscrapers and the North Shore mountains opposite.

Planning tip: If swimming in boat-filled English Bay doesn't entice you, Kits also has an enormous nearly 450ft (137m)-long saltwater pool, one of the largest of its kind in the world.

6. Shallow Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador

Best beach for kayaking

The bay is shallow, the beach long and the sunsets spectacular. This gentle swathe of sand protected within the boundary of Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park has a mellow Caribbean feel – at least until you dip your toes in the 59ºF (15ºC) waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Kayaking is a popular activity here. You can cast off from the beach and navigate the sheltered waters of Belldowns Islands, where arctic terns nest before undertaking their marathon migration south. Whales can sometimes be spotted out at sea, and when the weather turns chilly, beachside paths turn into cross-country skiing trails.

7. Annette Lake, Alberta

Best beach for wildlife

Landlocked Alberta relies on its lakes to entertain summer beachcombers. While the province has plenty of watery escapes to lure the sand-starved, few are as perfect as tiny Annette Lake in Jasper National Park, with its forested shoreline, dramatic mountain backdrop and invigoratingly cold glacial waters. Short and narrow, Annette's patch of sand is barely the length of a frisbee throw – yet this makes for some special quirks.

Planning tip: This is one of those rare beaches where you might want to pack some bear spray alongside your blow-up raft: grizzlies are sometimes spotted in the area. Elk and mule deer provide more innocuous company.

8. Plage de la Grande Échouerie, Québec

Best beach for kitesurfing

Administratively, the Îles de la Madeleine archipelago is in Québec; geographically, it's much closer to the Maritimes. Possessing an astounding 217 miles (350km) of beaches juxtaposed with iron-rich red cliffs, its pièce de la résistance is this 6-mile (10km) sweep of pale sand on the Anglophone island of Grosse Île.

Extending northeast from Pointe Old Harry into the wetlands of the 1690-acre (684-hectare) East Point National Wildlife Reserve, Grande Échouerie invites hours of uninterrupted meditation amid tufted dunes frequented by horned grebe and piping plover.

Planning tip: The archipelago's stiff winds make it one of the best places in Canada for kitesurfing or, for the less athletically inclined, kite-flying.

9. Dunes Beach, Ontario

Best beach for dunes

The aptly named Sandbanks Provincial Park, a 2.5-hour drive east of Toronto, juts into eastern Lake Ontario, forming the world's largest bay-mouth barrier dune formation. There are three fabulous beaches here.

The two most popular, Outlet and Lakeshore, face west onto the main body of Lake Ontario. A little quieter and a lot more interesting is Dunes Beach, which abuts the cleaner, calmer waters of sheltered West Lake. Here, giant dunes dotted with trees and bushes rise steeply from the shore. While most beaches invite rest and relaxation, Dunes tempts you to indulge in short, sharp hill climbs before tumbling at full pelt back down into the lake.

10. Parlee Beach, New Brunswick

Best beach for families

With the warmest sea water in Canada and International Blue Flag certification proclaiming its safety, accessibility and environmental credentials, Parlee is far and away New Brunswick's finest beach, its ribbon of sand soft and golden and the water shallow and positively balmy. In high summer, lifeguards patrol at all hours, making it a favorite among families. Commercialization is kept to a minimum, and grassy dunes buffer a manicured strip of showers, change rooms and poutine-plying spots to eat. The Beach Boys once played a concert at Parlee, which is still reflected in the beach's carefree rock' n' roll spirit today.

Planning tip: Locals in the know save their appetites for the nearby lobster capital of Shediac.