The beach is more about broken glass from generations of illicit parties than sand. The roar and squeal of a nearby railway locomotive compete with the birdsong. The wind carries a sweet chemical scent from a cooking oil processing plant to the west.

And just across the Detroit River, the skyline offered up by the United States is dominated by a sooty factory puffing out clouds of steam and intermittently shooting orange flame from a chimney as it turns coal into coke for steel mills.

But amid all this blight peeks out a most surprising sight: familiar yellow signs sporting the beaver logo of Parks Canada.

In a country with national parks set amid majestic mountains and vast expanses of wilderness, this unprepossessing stretch of land in Windsor, Ontario, is set to become part of Canada’s newest national park.

“People were really excited to see the first signs,” said Mike Fisher, a member of a volunteer group that has long promoted the idea of a national park here. “It’s essentially the beginnings of the tiniest national park in Canada.”