History
It is owned by the Government of New Brunswick and operated by the Department of Tourism and Parks. Parlee Beach Provincial Park includes Parlee Beach, arguably the most popular beach in New Brunswick, as well as a 190-site campground, day-use picnic area, restaurant, canteen, amphitheatre, change houses, showers, washrooms, playground and parking for over 1,000 vehicles. The park is open from 8am-10pm during the summer months. Parlee Beach is patrolled by Lifeguard/First Responders from the first weekend of June until Labour Day Weekend in September.
The waters of the Northumberland Strait are sometimes marketed as having the warmest ocean waters on the east coast of North America north of Virginia. Parlee Beach Provincial Park is one of New Brunswick's more popular recreational areas, attracting over 16,000 visitors on weekend days and has annual visitation rates of over 400,000 (entirely in the summer months).
The nearby town of Shediac benefits from the large number of tourists to the park and forms a summer service centre for numerous cottagers and campers who flock to the area. The popularity of Parlee Beach since the 1800s has created a cottaging area for the city of Moncton in communities surrounding Pointe-du-Chêne, ranging from the area of Cocagne and Bouctouche in the north and Barachois, Robichaud and Cap-Pelé in the east. This was enhanced by the construction of the 4-lane Route 15 expressway from Moncton to Shediac in the 1970s.
The park and beach received its name in 1959 in honour of T. Babbitt Parlee, the former Minister of Municipal Affairs in the ministry of New Brunswick Premier Hugh John Flemming; Parlee having died in an airplane crash in 1956.
The park extends south from the beach approximately 1 km (0.62 mi) to Main Street (Route 133), with the campground located on the eastern boundary. In 1989 The Beach Boys played a successful concert to approximately 20,000 fans at a temporary concert stage on a large mowed green space between Main Street and the beach.
Each spring the provincial government replaces sand on the beach that is lost due to winter storm erosion and storm surge damage.
Read more about this topic: Parlee Beach Provincial Park
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