Crescent Beach, Coastal neighborhood and beach in Surrey, Canada

Crescent Beach is a beachside community in South Surrey, British Columbia, on Boundary Bay and Mud Bay across from Delta. About 1,200 residents live mostly in single-family homes behind the beach. Permanent dikes built in 1913 now serve as the waterfront walkway, and the 120-tonne Crescent Rock boulder sits near the bottom of the 101-step staircase at 24 Avenue.

The tidal flats drew Snokomish people to a summer camp here until a smallpox epidemic in 1850 merged the survivors into the Semiahmoo First Nation. Spanish captain Galiano charted the point as San Rafael Point, and John Musselwaite of the Royal Engineers became the first owner in 1871. The Great Northern Railway reached the beach in 1909, dikes were built in 1913, and the 21-room Crescent Beach Hotel opened in 1912 and burned in 1950.

Beecher Street, called the Marine Drive of Crescent Beach, holds bistros, ice cream cafes and small stores. Since 2012 Beach House Theatre has staged Shakespeare plays in August in open-ended tents, adding non-Shakespeare works from 2015. Scenes from the 2010 film Tron: Legacy were shot along the waterfront.

The beach is easy to reach from Beecher Street and several nearby parking areas along the waterfront. You will find washrooms, shower facilities, and a few casual restaurants, plus designated zones for swimming.

Sewer excavation in 1970 uncovered First Nations burial sites at Crescent Beach, and later digs in some areas brought up more than 700 human remains. The Semiahmoo First Nation credits three to five metres of the land base to archaeological deposits of clams, charcoal and fire-cracked rocks; without them the area would be little more than a sandspit.