Camping Plage Gagnon

A dozen kilometres east of Shediac, on the line between Cap-Pelé and Grand-Barachois, Camping Plage Gagnon is a big family campground set right on the Northumberland Strait. The business has been run by the same family since the beginning, and a number of campers have been coming back every summer for more than forty years — which says a lot about the atmosphere there.

The campground has some 270 sites, mostly seasonal, with full hookups, well-kept washroom blocks, a laundry, a heated pool, playgrounds and a basketball court. It's a lively, family-oriented campground where the children have plenty to do from morning to night.

But the real selling point is the direct beach access: kilometres of clean, open sand, a five-minute walk from the sites, with that surprisingly mild water of the Acadian coast. The Northumberland Strait does in fact have the warmest salt water north of the Carolinas — 20 to 22 °C in July, sometimes more.

And above all — above all — the sunset. You settle onto the sand at the end of the day, the horizon catches fire above the strait, and you understand why the regulars talk about it with such affection. It's the kind of end of day that justifies the detour all by itself, and probably our finest memory of the Acadian coast.