This weekend the Sand Bay Association hosted its annual Sand Bay Fun Days – two days packed with land and water games for all ages that have been a tradition in the community for generations.
Saturday hosted land, water, and kayak races, as well as a unique triathlon that required participants to balance cups of water like waiters, kayak, and run in costumes. That day the community could enjoy pizza and poutine from Shawville’s Fair Pizza, as well as a concert by The Reg Carkner Band at the ball field in the evening.
Sunday started with tie-dyeing on the beach, an Amazing Race that led participants through the community in search for clues, and ended with an evening sand castle competition.
All the activities were for kids 13 and under, except for the triathlon which is for ages 14 and up, and the Amazing Race, which is open to all.
The weekend of fun is organized by the Sand Bay Association, however the Amazing Race portion is organized by the previous year’s race winner.
Last year Sarah Barake won the event with her team who has participated for the last four or five years, crowning her this year’s organizer.
She organized a course that took the four participating teams around to nine different locations in the community, guided by a collection of clues.
“There’s a lot of landmarks here that everyone [knows] because most of us have all grown up here,” Barake said, adding some staples are the old phone booth, something that has “been around forever.”
The winners of the 2025 Sand Bay Amazing Race was the team Muscle Hustle. However, Sand Bay Association president Stacey Thomson said the Tweedy team has offered to take on the organizing duties next year as members of Muscle Hustle are a little young to take on the task.
Thomson said over the years, the community Fun Days have been kept relatively similar to how they were decades ago in an attempt to preserve the community tradition.
She said she wasn’t sure exactly when the tradition began, but knows it has been a community staple for well over half a century.
Thomson remembers when she was growing up, kids would take their prize money to the store in Sand Bay to buy candy with their winnings.
The store is no longer there, but the association makes up candy bags so the winners can still purchase a sweet treat with their hard earned prize money.
“Parents and the grandparents [enjoy it] because it’s now them, watching their children and grandchildren doing the same things that they did years and years ago. So it’ s cool to see the generations and generations of Sand Bay kids doing the fun day activities,” Thomson said.
