Map - Wasaga Beach (Wasaga Beach)

Wasaga Beach (or simply Wasaga) is a town in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada. Situated along the longest freshwater beach in the world, it is a popular summer tourist destination. It is located along the southern end of Georgian Bay, approximately 150 km north of Toronto and about 40 km northwest of Barrie. To the west, Collingwood and The Blue Mountains also attract visitors much of the year. The town is situated along a very long sandy beach on Nottawasaga Bay in Georgian Bay and the winding Nottawasaga River. The beaches are part of the Wasaga Beach Provincial Park; the park area totals 168 hectares (415 acres). Wasaga Beach has a year-round population of 24,862 as of 2021, but during the summer months the population increases with many seasonal residents.

The economy has struggled for some years, particularly since a major fire in late November 2007 destroyed many of the stores. It depends on tourists in an area where the primary shopping season is three to four months per year. In March 2017, the town passed its Downtown Development Master Plan, a 20-year strategy for significant redevelopment of the tourist area and adding a downtown to the business area. The goal is to improve tourism, diversify the economy, and get beyond its "party town" image.

Wasaga Beach and the surrounding area was inhabited by the Huron-Wendat Nation for centuries before they were conquered and driven from their ancestral lands in 1649 by the Iroquois Haudenosaunee (Known as the Five Nation Iroquois Confederacy). The word Nottawasaga is of Algonquin origin. Nottawa means "Iroquois" and saga means "mouth of the river"; the word "Nottawasaga" was used by Algonquin scouts as a warning if they saw Iroquois raiding parties approaching their villages.

In 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain and invaded Upper Canada on several occasions. Wasaga Beach became a strategic location at the mouth of the Nottawasaga River leading to Fort Willow and the Nine Mile Portage which was part of the supply line for British forces in the War of 1812 to Fort Michilimackinac and points to the north and west. The Royal Navy schooner HMS Nancy was scuttled in the Nottawasaga River to prevent the Americans from capturing her and her stores.

Lumbering was the main industry for the remainder of the 19th century. Logs were floated downriver and into the bay, gathered at ports to feed local saw mills.

Because Wasaga Beach had sandy soil unsuitable for cultivation, it did not attract early European settlement. In the 1820s the first sign of settlement in the area began as John Goessman surveyed Flos Township. In 1826, land was being sold for four shillings an acre. Though unsuitable for farming, the Wasaga Beach area had an abundance of trees. In the late 1830s and throughout the rest of the century, the logging industry was key to the economy and integral to development of the area. The first permanent settler was John Van Vlack, who arrived in 1869 and founded a settlement on the south side of the Nottawasaga River near its mouth and named it after himself. In 1872, a wooden bridge, the Vanvlack Bridge, was constructed east of the present Main Street bridge to provide access to the beach, then used mainly as a road. The name Wasaga Beach was first used in the area in the late 19th Century.

During the 1900s, families began to discover the beauty of the area. The beach gradually became a place for family picnics and holidays during the summer months, and the first cottages were built. In 1909, a new steel bridge was constructed to replace the Vanvlack Bridge. Wasaga Beach had its beginning as a major resort area when the first beachfront hotel, The Capstan Inn, was opened in 1915 by entrepreneur John McLean in what would later develop into the present Beach One area. In 1918, he opened the Dardanella Dance Hall, and over the next several decades more hotels, venues, and amusements would open. During the 1940s, servicemen stationed at Base Borden, a nearby military base, visited Wasaga Beach's amusement park, and they made Wasaga Beach known across the country. After the war, Wasaga Beach continued to be a popular place for cottages and day trips.

Wasaga Beach entered history's headlines in 1934. It was the site of departure for the first overseas flight from mainland Canada across the Atlantic to England. A plane named the Trail of the Caribou used Wasaga Beach's long, flat, sandy beach as a take-off strip.

The town was originally referred to as "the northern border of Flos Sunnidale and Nottawasaga Townships". The first municipal reference occurred with a designation of a Local Improvement District in 1947. In 1949, Wasaga Beach was classified as a police village in the Township of Sunnidale, and was incorporated as a village in 1951.

In 1959, the beach was designated as a "Crown beach", which was the precursor to the establishment of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. The province began expropriating beachfront properties to create a continuous belt of parkland along the full length of the beach, save for keeping the main beach area for commercial uses. This proved controversial; so the province scaled down plans and settled for separated parks, which are today's Beach Areas 2-6. Driving and parking along the beach was previously permitted and popular, but in 1973 the province took cars off the beach.