Hiking in the Thomson Bay Dunes
south shore, Lake Athabasca

Ghostly stands of trees in an exhumed forest

Thomson Bay stretches for almost 28 kilometres along the south shore of Lake Athabasca. The bay is lined by a broad sandy beach and the massive Thomson Bay dune field, covering 9,700 hectares. Beach ridges along the shore are constantly being reworked by wind and waves. Beach ridge blowouts come to the edge of a tiny forest, where towering spruce trees are undercut by the wind, their roots showing two metres above ground.

Discover the hidden beauty of a forest oasis in the sand, tracks that tell stories in the sand, and feel what it's like to be sand blasted during a wind storm. Join us as we walk through an enchanted exhumed forest on the slope of a dune adjoining the lake. Trees buried by dunes were later unearthed from their sandy tomb as the dune advanced farther east. Dessicated tree trunks now protrude from the sand like ghostly sentinels, with massive upturned roots resembling other-worldly sea monsters.