Saugeen Shores on one page

The town's own visiting page puts the shape of the place plainly: about 18 kilometres of sandy Lake Huron beachfront, trails through town and along the shore, and MacGregor Point Provincial Park at the south end. Port Elgin is the larger, busier centre, with the harbour, the main beach and the town's offices. Southampton, at the mouth of the Saugeen River, is the older and quieter one, with the county museum, the boardwalk and the lighthouse island offshore. People who live here move between the two without thinking about it, and visitors should plan the same way.

The municipal office is the Town of Saugeen Shores Municipal Office at 600 Tomlinson Drive in Port Elgin, in the same complex as The Plex arena, the address and phone number the Town publishes for council and election services. Southampton keeps its own historic town hall building on High Street. One town, two main streets: Goderich Street in Port Elgin and High Street in Southampton. This guide names which centre a place sits in every time, because local people do.

Two centres, two histories

Port Elgin started as Normanton. A mill community grew here from the early 1850s, the railway arrived in the early 1870s, and the place was incorporated in 1874 and renamed for James Bruce, Earl of Elgin, a former Governor General. The harbour and the beach made it a summer town early, and it never really stopped being one, though it works year-round now in a way pure resort towns do not.

Southampton is older. Captains John Spence and William Kennedy founded the settlement in 1848, when commercial fishing and coastal trade on the lake and the Saugeen River were the economy, and its name changed from Saugeen to Southampton in 1858. The lightstation tower on Chantry Island, offshore, was completed in April 1859 to warn ships off the boulders in the channel. Southampton was incorporated as a town in 1904, with furniture factories, a tannery and a sawmill behind it. The two histories still show: Port Elgin reads as the harbour-and-beach town, Southampton as the fishing port that became the county's cultural seat.

The shore is the town

Everything in Saugeen Shores faces west, and that one fact organises local life. The beach chain runs the length of the town: Gobles Grove and the smaller grove beaches south of Port Elgin, Port Elgin Main Beach at the foot of Green Street beside the harbour, the North Shore beaches on the road toward Southampton, and then Southampton's own string, from the Long Dock along the dunes to the main beach below High Street and Pioneer Park at the river mouth. Sunset is the daily event here, in every season, and the town's visitor survey reads the same way: beaches, sunsets and the trails are what people remember.

Two jurisdictions need naming honestly, because visitors trip over both. Saugeen First Nation No. 29 and the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation are separate First Nations, not part of this town, and their lands, events and places are theirs; this guide does not present them as Saugeen Shores attractions. And Bruce Power is not in town. The generating station sits well south of here in a neighbouring municipality. Many local people work there, and its name appears on local sponsorships, but it is never listed in this guide as a Saugeen Shores attraction, because it is not one.

Southampton: the county's museum and the old town hall

At 33 Victoria Street North in Southampton stands the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre. It is a Bruce County institution that happens to sit in this town, and this guide attributes it to the County every time: county history galleries, the county archives, a settlers' cabin and year-round programming for adults and children, with its theatre hosting concerts and events. Its own surface, brucemuseum.ca, governs exhibitions, hours and tickets; none are frozen here.

Around it, old Southampton repays a slow walk: High Street's shops and galleries, the Southampton Arts Centre in the old town hall building, Fairy Lake and its park below the street, and the harbour at the river mouth with its range lights. The town's two library branches belong to the county system too: the Bruce County Public Library keeps a Port Elgin branch at 708 Goderich Street and a Southampton branch at 215 High Street. Branch hours are the county library's to publish, and this guide freezes none.

Voting in Saugeen Shores, fall 2026

Saugeen Shores votes in the 2026 municipal election on Monday, October 26, 2026. Per the Town's own 2026 election procedures and its elections page, voting runs by internet and telephone from Monday, October 19, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. to Monday, October 26 at 8:00 p.m., using the voter information letter the Town mails to electors, and the new council's inaugural meeting is set for Monday, November 16, 2026. The Town's elections page at saugeenshores.ca is the governing hub for how to get on the voters' list, voter help and any change to these details, so check it before you vote. In-person help runs at the Voter Help Centre at The Plex, 600 Tomlinson Drive, through the voting period, and free computer access for voting is published at both library branches during their regular hours.

The certified candidates, from the Town's Official List of Candidates certified by the Clerk, are: for Mayor (one to elect) — Luke Charbonneau, Jeff James and Brian Putman; for Deputy Mayor (one) — Odette Bartnicki and Diane Huber; for Vice Deputy Mayor (one) — Bud Halpin and Don Matheson; for Port Elgin Ward councillor (two) — Dane Buttenaar, Patricia Corrigan-Frank, Jordan MacKinnon, Tamara McDonald and Rachel Stack; for Saugeen Ward councillor (two) — Neil Sarginson, Sterling Thiele and Eric Tolton; for Southampton Ward councillor (two) — John Divinski, Cheryl Grace, Harry Mazmanian, Cathe McIntosh and Brenda Reeves; for Bluewater District school trustee — Julia Bates and Katie Lutz; and for Conseil scolaire Viamonde trustee — Rachael Golem and Eric Lapointe. One further name stands alone on the Town's list, Michael Salvatore for Conseil scolaire catholique Providence, Area 1; this guide asserts no acclamation for it, because the Town's declaration was not extractable when the record settled. The Town's elections page governs candidate information and any change.

The working town between the beaches

Between festivals, this is a town of arenas and programs. The Plex, the Saugeen Shores Community Complex at 600 Tomlinson Drive in Port Elgin, is the main arena and community hall, home ice for the Saugeen Shores Winterhawks, and the Southampton Coliseum at 26 Albert Street South gives the north end its own rink and curling ice. The Town publishes the skating and program schedules for both, and they change often enough that this guide freezes none of them. The Saugeen Rail Trail, built on the old railway line, links the two centres for walkers and cyclists, and the shore road between them is the town's everyday scenic drive. The Things to Do page takes each of these at its grade.

Common questions

More to explore in Saugeen Shores