BRACKLEY BEACH
A castle-demolishing octopus took over Brackley Beach and won the hearts of judges during the Great Island Sandcastle Competition on the weekend.
Sea turtles, dragons, lobsters, and other elaborate creations of sand lined the beach for the Great Island Sandcastle Competition as part of Parks Day, a national event hosted by Parks Canada.
This year’s winning team was made of family members from Montreal, Que. who were no strangers to the competition.
“Two years ago, when we won, we won the first prize and three years ago we (were) second place,” said mother Marie-Josée Labelle, noting the family’s team name was La Pieuvre du sables.
The team’s creation was a massive sand-castle, about the size two baby elephants, completed with an octopus of roughly the same size attacking it.
Labelle, along with her husband Benoit Giroux and sons Rémy and Vincent, spend their summers in Cavendish. The sand castle competition has become a staple in their visit.
“We love to do it,” said Labelle.
Attracting people to the Island is one of the purposes of the competition, said Tara McNally MacPhee, visitor experience manager for P.E.I. National Parks.
“Those people were here three years ago, they won that prize so it’s in their head and now they’ve got this connection to the beach, to P.E.I. and to P.E.I. National Park,” said McNally MacPhee. “Any time we can make that kind of a connection with people it’s excellent because they become our supporters, our ambassadors.”
People had free access to the beach on Parks Day, which made for an excellent turnout of beach-goers.
While some families plan their summer around the sand castle competition, others join while visiting the beach.
“It’s a beautiful day, we get to spend it all together and learn new things because we had no idea how to make nice sand castles,” said Roxanne Dagenais, who is visiting from Montreal with her two sons Niko and Nektarios.
Fifteen-year-old Nektarios said he enjoyed helping others build sandcastles and seeing the different creations on the beach.
“It’s different than the other events I’ve been to for sure,” said Nektarios. “I’ve never experienced a sandcastle building competition. It’s nice to see the different things that people make— the creativity that they have.”
Other activities that took place on Parks Day included yoga on the beach, an educational Beach Hut where children could learn about the Island’s ecosystems through nature demonstrations and the Surf Guard Competition.
“These surf guards are so well trained and in such amazing shape,” said McNally MacPhee. “They’re prepared for the worst-case scenario in the water.”
For those still interested in building sand castles this summer, there is a program hosted by Maurice Bernard called “Sensational Sandcastles” that takes place at Brackley Beach on Mondays and at Cavendish Beach on Wednesdays.
Prize Winners
The theme of this year’s Great Island Sandcastles competition was “Nature and Conservation”.
The first-place prize winners of the Great Island Sand Castle competition, La Pieuvre du Sable, received a one night stay in a “Otentik” in P.E.I.’s National Park.
The second-place prize is a night of camping in P.E.I’s National Park.
Second place went to team Wonna Castle for its depiction of a large lobster hole in front of an island, meant to depict erosion on P.E.I.
First place in the youth category was Thomas Contant for his array of joining sand castles.
