Build your dream castle
Hook up with a P.E.I. artist for a sandcastle lesson
To celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, we are exploring all 10 provinces and three territories. Today’s issue is devoted to Prince Edward Island. Watch for our British Columbia coverage June 3.
DALVAY-BY-THE-SEA, P.E.I.— Artist Maurice Bernard is waiting at the beach, armed with yellow buckets, shovels, plastic rulers, putty knives, fibre basting brushes and disposable plastic knives.
We’re not going to just dump a bucket full of sand upside down and declare the lump a sandcastle — we’re going to make an honest-to-goodness castle from sand. It’s not easy. You can’t just wing it. So listen up. Step1: Use a shovel to make a mountain of sand. Pour water on it. “The wetter the sand, the better the sand.” Step 2: Put water in your industrial-size bucket. Add sand. Get a big handful of wet, mucky sand and start to build. Plop your sand near the top of your mountain. Use your hands to shape, but don’t pack it. “If you whack it, you crack it.” It’s hard to describe the process. Bernard figures he has a five-minute window to explain things to both kids and adults in a mad rush to get going.
“They see this as being pretty easy,” Bernard says.
After a while, though, they settle down and are willing to learn.
Bernard is a Scarborough-born, former shoe salesperson who has been a painter here for 30-plus years. He loved building sandcastles with his kids and somehow fell into his current gig.
Now he does it every summer on the north shore with Parks Canada, usually at Cavendish or Brackley Beach, but today at Dalvay-by-the-Sea in Prince Edward Island National Park.
“P.E.I. sand, it holds moisture and it makes it easier to sculpt once you’re ready. There are not a lot of rocks. It’s a fine sand.”
He loves seeing people, kids especially, discover that sand is a medium “they can control and they use very quickly.”
For some people, it’s all about finding ways to keep kids amused so they can stay at the beach longer. For others, it’s all about the quest for a castle.
Bernard has two helpers, both 14 years old. Sam Edgcomb is home-schooled and this is part of the work experience he needs. Solomon McAleer is also here. They work quietly on the back of the castle and make runs for buckets of water as needed.
Parks Canada promotions officer Janette Gallant is here, too, revealing that this is the seventh season for the program that encourages more people — especially young families — to get outdoors and connect with the environment.
Our castle starts to take shape as Bernard shows how to make walls, towers, stairs and buildings. He uses the cheap plastic knife to carve bricks and stones. He uses his hands to fashion trees with water dripping from his fingers.
As an artist, he understands the importance of light, shadows and angles.
Here’s the catch with sandcastles. “The only thing you get to bring home is the photo,” Bernard says. “So I try to make sure it’s photogenic.”
He quickly carves an overhang that creates a shadow that “defines it a lot better.” “Well, that’s lovely,” coos a passerby. “How beautiful is that?” raves another. Our time is up. For a finishing touch, we make a few ornamental “sandballs,” which is just like making meatballs.
Bernard gets his helpers to clear away the buckets and gear so we can get our pretty pictures.
To make the castle look bigger than it actually is, he digs a moat around it, adds water to smooth things out and sprinkles the area with light, dry sand for contrast. It’s gorgeous. Most people snap their photos and walk away. Me, I want the pleasure of knocking it down. Bernard says we’ll put tunnels through the centre.
“It’s a constructive way to destroy because jumping on it is so monumental.”
We use our hands to create tunnels and the sandcastle implodes, in a most fabulous and artistic way. Jennifer Bain was hosted by Tourism PEI, which didn’t review or approve this story.