Cavendish Beach

Cavendish is on the northern shore of Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, within Prince Edward Island National Park. The beach runs several kilometres beneath low cliffs of red sandstone with dunes behind.

The red is iron oxide in the sandstone, and it colours everything — the cliffs, the soil, and the sand, which runs from pale to distinctly rust-toned depending on the section. The island's agricultural soil is the same material, which is why PEI potatoes are grown in visibly red fields.

The water is the surprise. The Gulf of St Lawrence is shallow and enclosed enough to warm substantially in summer, reaching the low twenties in August — warmer than anywhere else on the Canadian Atlantic coast and warmer than much of New England. The season is short but genuine. The dunes behind the beach are fragile and boardwalked, and the piping plover, an endangered shorebird, nests on sections that are closed through the summer.

Cavendish is also where Lucy Maud Montgomery set *Anne of Green Gables*, published in 1908 and never out of print since; the farmhouse that inspired the setting is a national historic site a short distance inland, and the book brings a very large number of visitors, particularly from Japan, where it has been on the school curriculum for decades. The North Shore has a chain of beaches within the same national park, and Brackley and Stanhope are quieter versions of this one.

The Gulf of St Lawrence is shallow enough to reach the low twenties in August, which makes this the warmest saltwater swimming in Canada and a genuine surprise. Red cliffs, red soil, red sand, all iron oxide. The season is eight weeks and the gulf freezes for a good part of the rest. The Anne of Green Gables farmhouse inland is a national historic site and brings very large numbers, particularly from Japan, where the book has been on the curriculum for decades.