Dunes at P.E.I. National Park showing signs of recovery from Fiona's wrath

Parks Canada says it's seeing encouraging signs of dune regrowth in Prince Edward Island National Park — and some of the credit goes to beachgoers who stay off them.

Kerry-Lynn Atkinson, a landscape ecologist with Parks Canada, said marram grass, beach pea and sea rocket are all starting to re-establish along the baby dunes after damage from post-tropical storm Fiona in September 2022.

"Their rhizomes, their roots, they all start to kind of hold, to stand together. I think of them as like a spider web or a net of some sort," she said.

"And then as those plants get bigger, the sand that's deposited onto the beach starts to build up behind those plants. And it seems like such a small, intricate process, and it really is. But that's how we get the start of a great big huge dune like you'll see out in Greenwich."

Sand dunes help protect P.E.I. from the effects of coastal erosion. Atkinson said it will still be at least a decade before most of the landscape recovers from Fiona.

She said the dunes at Greenwich, on P.E.I.'s North Shore near St. Peters Bay, have made the most progress, but they also were the least damaged of the 65 kilometres of shoreline in the national park.

The beaches at Cavendish and Brackley saw the most damage. 

Atkinson said those dunes see the most foot traffic, and that can slow recovery.

Parks Canada is appreciative of the people who stay off the dunes, she said.

"We put in a lot of effort to help to conserve this sensitive ecosystem," Atkinson said. "So things like authorized dune-crossing locations, compliance personnel on staff, physical barriers, educational signage and full dune closures, those are all part of the enhanced enforcements that have been put into place to protect this ecosystem."