If you arrived late for the Cobourg Sandcastle Festival on Saturday, you may have missed it.
Not the festival itself — but some of the incredible works of art that had taken hours to create on Victoria Beach.
For much of August 8, 2026, Cobourg’s waterfront was transformed into an outdoor art gallery, with master sand sculptors from across Canada and around the world turning ordinary beach sand into elaborate works of art.
Then the sky opened.
What began as a spectacular day of sand, sun and creativity ended with thunder rolling across Lake Ontario, followed by a torrential downpour that swept across Victoria Beach and, for a time, appeared to turn the shoreline itself into part of the lake.
Some of the sculptures were left standing.
Others were dramatically altered.
And some were almost impossible to recognize.
For the artists who had spent hours carefully carving their creations, it was a reminder of what makes sand sculpture so unique — and so fleeting.
But before the rain arrived, Victoria Beach was alive with creativity.
Nine master sculptors were at work, joined by a community sculpture and an amateur competition that brought families and teams together to build their own creations.
Coordinator, Tourism and Events for the Town of Cobourg, Jenny McCaig described the day as nothing short of fabulous.
“I tried not to look at the weather. I tried not to talk about the weather because if you talk about the weather, then it happens,” she joked.
Despite the threatening forecast, the beach delivered.
“Beautiful Cobourg Beach. Wonderful day here for the Sand Castle Festival,” she said.
And there was plenty to see.
The master sculptors transformed piles of sand into detailed scenes filled with characters, creatures and stories. Visitors wandered along the beach, stopping repeatedly to photograph the creations and watch the artists work.
“There’s just so much talent on this beach,” McCaig said. “So much talent in this town and so much talent from all around the world, actually, and Canada.”
The imagination involved was one of the biggest attractions.
“When you look at their work, you just keep spotting new things and you just wonder where they get it from,” she said.
For many of the sculptors, Cobourg has become much more than another stop on the festival circuit.
They return because they love the community.
“They’re always so welcoming,” McCaig said. “I just love that about Cobourg.”
Among those artists was Kingston’s Rodney Watson, who was putting the finishing touches on his sculpture when he spoke about his creation.
This year, Watson went with a childhood-inspired theme — “The Monster Under the Bed.”
On one side of the sculpture, a smaller child peers underneath the bed, while a rather unpleasant-looking monster emerges from the other side.
“It went well and the weather was cooperative,” Watson said.
For a sand sculptor, however, getting the weather to cooperate is only part of the challenge.
One of the biggest technical difficulties is getting the right combination of sand and water.
Watson has found Cobourg’s beach particularly well suited to the craft.
“I love it. The sand is so clean, crisp. There’s no debris in it. Very easy to work with.”
His journey into professional sand sculpting began almost by accident.
In 2007, while at the beach with his children, Watson watched a professional sculptor at work.
“I was in awe of what he could do,” he recalled.
He decided to try it himself.
“I went in the competition, and won it.”
Since then, his work has taken him to beaches and festivals well beyond Kingston. He has worked at Wasaga Beach, Cobourg Beach and Sandbanks, and has also been commissioned by Parks Canada and in Prince Edward Island.
But despite the travel and the years of experience, being back in Cobourg carried a special significance.
“I grew up on this beach, too, when I was a small child,” Watson said. “So, it’s a homecoming, so to speak.”
At 60, he admits he never imagined he would still be “playing in the sand.”
But when the work is finished and thousands of people stop to admire it, the effort becomes worthwhile.
“It means a lot. It’s wonderful,” he said.
“For me to create something, and for people to love it and enjoy it enough to take pictures and share it later — means the world.”
Watson was one of several master sculptors bringing years of experience and very different artistic backgrounds to Cobourg.
Among them were Quebec’s Mike and Rachelle, the married couple behind Think Big, who have been sculpting together for more than 20 years.
Their journey began on a vacation to the Magdalen Islands when they spontaneously entered a sandcastle competition.
They were hooked.
Since then, they have competed at festivals across Quebec and earned multiple first-place and People’s Choice awards. They have also become longtime participants in Cobourg.
Tanya Kastl brought more than two decades of experience to the beach, creating sculptures inspired by nature, wildlife and the ocean.
Her artistic journey began with simple drip castles before evolving into intricate creations that have earned recognition at competitions and appearances on CBC’s Race Against the Tide and HGTV’s Cottage Makeover.
Sèveline Beauregard, one of the younger professional carvers on the scene, has worked in snow, ice and sand.
Her journey began with her father and sister on snow carving projects before she developed her own career and founded Sculpture BeauRegard in Quebec.
For Beauregard, sculpting is about being completely immersed in the moment.
“To carve, you have to be here, in the present moment.”
Peterborough-area artist Tom Chalmers has been carving sand and snow since 2020, building an audience through his work.
His own front yard has become a sculpture centre, proving that the art doesn’t need a major festival to happen.
And then there was Sandi “Castle” Stirling, who has been sculpting sand since 1995 and has spent the past two decades working at the master level.
Her resume includes competitions and festivals across Canada and the United States, along with an appearance on CBC’s Race Against the Tide as one half of the Sand Grannies.
Her philosophy is simple:
“In every pile of sand is a castle just beckoning to come out — I just need to carve it out.”
Dutch artist Joris Kivits has been creating sand sculptures since 2006, after discovering the medium while working in Belgium.
For Kivits, the temporary nature of sand sculpture is part of its beauty.
It is, he says, a kind of theatre — something audiences can enjoy while it exists, knowing that eventually it will disappear and only photographs and memories will remain.
Toronto sculptor Bob Atisso approaches sand art from a more reflective perspective, using his sculptures to explore emotion, culture, resilience and the human experience.
And Dmitry Klimenko brought an extraordinary international resume to Cobourg.
A graduate of the Saint Petersburg State Academy of Industrial Art and Design, Klimenko originally envisioned a career creating permanent monumental works.
Instead, sand found him.
After filling in for a colleague at a competition in Saint Petersburg, he discovered the possibilities of the medium and never looked back.
His career has taken him to sand and ice festivals around the world, including Japan, Russia, Canada, the United States, Kuwait, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, Poland and Latvia.
But on Saturday, all of that experience was concentrated on one beach in Cobourg.
And then came the rain.
Thunder began rumbling in the distance as the afternoon moved toward evening.
The clouds gathered.
Then the rain arrived.
It wasn’t a passing shower.
It was a deluge.
Water poured onto Victoria Beach for approximately an hour, pounding the sand and washing away portions of sculptures that had taken hours to build.
In places, the rainwater gathered around the creations so extensively that some sculptures appeared to be sitting on islands.
The same beach that had been packed with people admiring intricate works of art suddenly became a very different landscape.
The artists could do little but watch.
Sand sculpture is, after all, an art form built with the understanding that nothing lasts forever.
The storm simply accelerated the process.
And then, almost as quickly as it had arrived, the rain stopped.
The clouds began to break.
The evening light returned.
People came back down to the beach to see what remained.
For some sculptures, enough survived that the original creation could still be recognized.
For others, it was difficult to tell what had once stood there.
But perhaps that was fitting.
Because the Cobourg Sandcastle Festival isn’t really about building something that will last.
It is about creating something extraordinary for a moment.
It is about imagination, patience, craftsmanship and the willingness to take a pile of sand and turn it into a story.
And on Saturday, the weather added one more chapter to those stories.
For a few hours, Victoria Beach was an art gallery.
Then the rain came.
And Lake Ontario reminded everyone that, in the end, nature always gets the final word.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
