Grand Beach – West

Grand Beach – West

Grand Marais, Manitoba

Managed by North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper

West Grand Beach has been a favourite Manitoba holiday destination since 1916. It is Manitoba's “little piece of paradise on the prairies”, and Lake Winnipeg’s most popular beach with some weekends seeing tens of thousands of visitors. The beach boardwalk was built in the early 1930s - great for an afternoon stroll. The beach is located within Grand Beach Provincial Park, requiring a 3 day or seasonal park pass which can be purchased at the park entrance. As with many beaches on Lake Winnipeg, it has fine, white sand and a very gradual descent into deeper water. The beach extends for 3 km along the waterfront, framed by high sand dunes. A pedestrian bridge joins West and East Grand Beach, which is divided by a causeway and adjacent lagoon, home to many wildlife species and self-guided trails. The busy resort area also offers boating and water sports, including windsurfing. In addition to beach walks, hikers may explore nature trails in Grand Beach Provincial Park, where you may see the rare Pileated Woodpecker and, during the summer, the Piping Plover. Historically, Grand Beach was a popular destination by train in the 1920s, with a carousel, dance hall pavilion and live music. The dance hall was destroyed by fire in 1950, but the community has remained a summer hot spot.

Water quality samples are collected from West Grand Beach twice a week.

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Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 28th, 2019. North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on August 29th, 2019 at 5:23 PM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

-10°C

Cloudy

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Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Manitoba Sustainable Development, has developed the Clean Beaches Program to provide valuable information to the public on how to protect Manitoba’s beautiful beaches and reduce the risk of illness to bathers. There are about 60 beaches across Manitoba that are routinely monitored each season for E. coli and the presence of algae and the algal toxin microcystin. Beaches that exceed Manitoba’s recreational water quality objectives are posted with advisory signs at the beach and on Manitoba’s beach website at: Manitoba.ca/beaches. Water quality samples are routinely collected during the summer months. Monitoring typically begins in June and continues at most beaches until the end of August. Frequency of sampling is determined based on recreational intensity, historic bacteria data, or in support of special projects. Swim Guide checks daily from Monday - Friday for E. coli and algae advisories. If the geometric mean of E. coli samples exceeds Manitoba’s recreational water quality objective of 200 bacteria/100 mL and/or when a single sample contains more than 400 bacteria/100 mL the beach is re-sampled. A beach is marked Green when the geometric mean of E. coli samples is below Manitoba’s recreational water quality objective of 200 bacteria/100 mL.A beach is marked Red when the geometric mean of E. coli samples is above Manitoba’s recreational water quality objective of 200 bacteria/100 mL. A beach is marked Grey when reliable or up-to-date information is not available.

Water Quality Graph