Arrowhead Beach Park

Arrowhead beach is an ideal place to swim, kayak and bring your dog for a day at the beach. Beach is sandy and has a gradual depth. Lots to see here including sailboats as CFB Yacht Club is within this area. There's also a trail through the woods where you will find some lovely quiet green space. One of the coolest things is in the water just left of the beach in Dead Mans Bay. Here lies an old 150 foot sunken ship resting in shallow clear waters. Perfect for viewing or diving down to touch, (if you are brave enough.)

Arrowhead Beach is one of five sites monitored by the community water monitoring hub in Kingston. Launched in 2020, the Kingston hub is one of six Swim Drink Fish hubs across the country. It is also a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper project. The hubs aim to grow connections between communities and local waterways by providing access to low-cost and accessible water monitoring tools for citizen scientists. Through water monitoring, the hub hopes to help inform community decisions about addressing pollution and protecting and restoring the Great Lakes.

We sample this site every Thursday morning and process our samples using TECTA-PDS technology, which provides us water quality results in less than a day!

You can learn more about the initiative and how to get involved here: https://www.swimdrinkfish.ca/volunteer

This project has been undertaken with financial support from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

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Water Quality

Passed water quality tests at least 95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 12th, 2022. Kingston Monitoring Hub updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on August 12th, 2022 at 11:59 AM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

12°C

Chance of heavy rain

View this beach on Great Lakes Guide

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Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Swim Drink Fish staff and volunteers monitor recreational water quality along the shore of Lake Ontario during the summer months. The guidelines followed are the Operational Approaches for Recreational Water Guideline, 2018, set by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

Prior to 2018 beaches in Ontario were posted when the geometric mean of 5 samples collected within a 30-day period exceeded 100 E. coli / 100 mL of water, a standard derived from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks’ Provincial Water Quality Objectives. Water is sampled for E.coli and Total Coliform at all sites. The water is sampled once weekly from July to early September. Results are available 24 hours after samples are collected.

Beaches are posted when the geometric mean of 5 samples collected within a given swimming area and within a 30-day period exceeds 200 E. coli / 100 ml of water or when a single-sample maximum concentration exceeds 400 E. coli / 100 ml of water. Test results are expressed in terms of colony forming units (CFU) of E.coli per 100 ml by using the TECTA B16 rapid microbiological testing instrument.

In accordance with Ontario’s provincial recreational water quality standard, a beach is marked Green when geometric mean of 5 samples results are equal or below 200 E.coli / 100 mL water and below the single sample criteria of 400 E.coli/100ml.

A beach is marked Red when the geometric mean concentration (minimum of five samples) is above 200 E.coli / 100 mL or above the 400 E.coli/100mL for a single sample.

A beach is marked Grey when there are no current results or there is no available information.

Results are posted as soon as lab results are available. Results will be communicated through the Swim Guide website and apps. Results are also available by email at georgia@swimdrinkfish.ca or by calling +1 (416) 861-1237.

Water Quality Graph