For many Islanders, walking the shore is a way to connect with nature – the smells, the sounds, the unobstructed sense of space. For me, the shore is a place of refuge, a place where I can be alone with my thoughts, a place where I can meet with friends and family to walk and chat and laugh.  

Today I’m at Ross Lane Beach. It’s January with a typical north wind. I’m here at the edge with my five-year-old daughter, Edie.  

I know this place – the long sandy strand of PEI National Park on the Island’s north shore: Brackley Beach, Shaw’s Beach, Covehead Harbour, Stanhope Cape, Ross Lane Beach, Stanhope Lane Beach, Dalvay, and all the small stretches of beach in between that have their own local nicknames. I grew up spending summers here and now I live here – three hundred metres from the shore. It’s difficult to express my connection to this place in words. It’s just something I feel in my bones.  

I used to walk the beach almost daily, in all seasons. But today is only my third time here in months. I try to blame my absence on the cold weather or on my busier-than-usual life these days. But I know in my heart it’s because Hurricane Fiona destroyed the landscape of this entire Park and I’m still in denial about it. Now, instead of inspiring me, my beach walks dishearten me. I wonder what will become of this place. How much longer will we have this National Park? Do I want to live here if we no longer have access to the beach?  

I walk across the snow towards the shore edge. The water hasn’t frozen yet; sand shows where the waves roll in and out. My mind jumps to the missing dunes and how jagged and empty and flattened everything looks. It’s cold and I feel ready to go home. I don’t want to be here.  

Edie points out a piece of amber sea glass, glistening in the wet sand. As she picks it up, I experience flashbacks – fragments of memory of other visits to this beach. 

April, 2019 – The Edge Delights  

It’s April and Edie is almost two years old. We’re walking the beach with my parents and my son, Ro. Edie is sheltered in the stroller, sucking her thumb and complaining about being cold. As we walk and look for sea glass, she suddenly yells for me to stop. She clumsily climbs out of the stroller and walks back a few steps, looking, searching. Then she reaches down and pulls a big blue piece of sea glass out of the wet sand. It’s a one-in-a-million find, and based on the look on her face, she knows it.  

July, 2022 – The Edge Connects 

I sit in the sand with a three-month-old magazine that I’ve been bringing to the beach with me every afternoon with false hope that I might actually get to read it. My kids are building something in the sand at the edge of the water. Three women who live nearby are walking past me, on their way to the shore. They are all in their late eighties. They’ve been coming here their entire lives. “Hello!” “Good morning!” “Beautiful day!” they say. They ask me how the water is. They continue to the shore, chatting and stopping to ask the kids what they are building. The oldest woman carries a thermometer on a stretchy cord attached to her bathing suit strap. I admire their friendship and joy of life while I listen to them laughing and talking as they slowly wade out into the water for a swim.  

May, 1992 – The Edge Is Curious 

A dead whale washed up on the beach today. Of course, we had to go see it. It’s a sperm whale and it’s giant. I rub my hand along its mouth and wonder what’s inside its belly. I try to climb on top of the whale but my mother tells me to get down. It’s starting to rot and it smells. I imagine the other giant whales swimming off the shore where I usually swim and I wonder what else could be out there, living in the dark water.  

October, 2015 – The Edge Soothes 

It’s fall and I am in my final months of maternity leave with our son, Ro. He’s dressed in a blue fuzzy North Face suit and a hand-knit wool hat with a John Deer tractor crest on the front. Like most first-borns, he’s very particular about his sleeping conditions, but he loves napping in the stroller as we walk along the shore. Every afternoon, we do this walk together. Once he falls asleep, I park the stroller near the edge, where the sound of waves keeps him asleep. I sit on the sand and think about how lucky we are to live here, how lucky he is to get to grow up with this place in his backyard. How I wish these next few months would last forever! 

September, 1997 – The Edge is Powerful  

It’s September and our final days at the cottage before moving back to town to start the school year – to daily routine, to life-as-usual. I’m excited to get back to school to see everyone, but I’m going to miss this place. It’s windy, but I walk down to the beach anyway. I climb the highest dune and sit at the top, watching the big white waves roll in. The surf thunders when it hits shore. I see a giant wave approaching, twice as big as any wave before it, and I watch as it finally crests, crashing down onto the beach, almost reaching the base of the dune I’m on.   

May, 2020 – The Edge Is a Sanctuary 

The whole world is in lockdown. I haven’t even seen my parents, who live next door, in two months. The Covid-19 pandemic is all anyone talks about. The PEI National Park is open only to foot traffic, which means we have the entire beach to ourselves. Every afternoon, I walk down to the shore with the kids. We fly kites, flip over rocks, hunt for crabs, build forts, collect shells, and make pretend dams, castles, and canals. Every single day, regardless of the weather, we come here to escape – escape from the digital world that we’ve been living in, escape from the uncertainty of when things will go back to normal. It’s an escape to a place where life is simple and beautiful.  

February, 2023 – The Edge is Home 

Edie pulls me back into the present. She’s cold too and is ready to go home. As we leave the beach, I notice that near the cliffs, where the dunes used to be, are tiny sprouts of marram grass poking through the sand, so inconspicuous that I’d walked right over them on my way to the shore. As I look closer, I can see that these sprouts have already begun collecting sand as it blows in the wind. I suddenly feel hopeful. If the marram grass holds, the dunes may someday return.   

Photos from the edge: