MeAnd’Er-ing around Prince Edward Island

Did you know that Nova Scotia has 4 official languages?  Mi’kmawi’simk (Mi’Kmaw), English, French, and Canadian Gaelic.  

Day 68 - From Melmerby Beach, NS we opted to take the Confederation Bridge across to PEI because we are heading up the west coast, and we’re so glad we did because it took us through Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia and the Train Station Inn - a ‘hotel’ of vintage Canadian built cabosses and boxcars with insides redesigned into private deluxe suites and a railway Dining Car.  

Prince Edward Island

Hopped the border back across to New Brunswick to get to the bridge and after crossing travelled Hwy. 2 through fields of potatoes as far as the eye could see.  When it wasn’t potatoes it was canola, beautiful bright yellow.

Charged up the EV in O’Leary then sat parked in the shade beside the O’Leary post office, in a building shared with Vinny’s Restaurant, so Roger could log into a MCSS meeting - it’s 5:pm our time!  Some things like MCSS, Rotary and the Farmers’ Market are just in our blood and we love being able to keep connected.  Not to mention FAMILY - which I miss terribly, friends too.

(The horse and buggy signs caution us to look out for Amish people on the road)

Marilyn arranged for us to stay with her friend Marlene in Pleasant View PEI on the North East coast, (Hwy 14) in her renovated/repurposed barn and it is fantastic!  Built pre 1932 it has been in her family for decades and the barn was home to horses, cows and chickens.  Since then, as family and neighbours needed lodging the stalls gave way to sleeping areas, the chicken coup and grainery to a kitchen, and eventually the loft to accommodate the overflow of a family with 5 children.  With the help of her nephew repairing a leaking roof, Marlene took on the challenge to “make something of the place” and with a team of family and friends has created a beautiful place for travellers to stay over.  It’s amazing, sitting in 45 acres of Acadian forest filled with old growth -old enough to have some near extinct species of plants, trees and birds, including ironwood, and Marlene is true born and bred Acadian!  What an unexpected surprise, although we had been told that while in the Maritimes you don’t need to make plans - they’ll do that for you - how true!

And the bonus is: we have a new friend!

Day 69 - we’ve logged 200 hours in car travelling together.  And what, one may ask, does one think about in all that time?  Well , let me tell you - the other day after seeing many porcupines and skunks killed on the road I pondered - ”do other species eat these road kill?”  One is covered in quills and the other stinks.  Well they do get scavenged, by foxes and crows, neither of which apparently have a very good sense of smell, and the underbelly of a porcupine is quite a delight. 

Another thought … parts of this province have sand and soil so red that the roads must look like checker boards from above with all the red and black sections. 

Gee, I hope I’m not a blithering idiot by the time we get home! 

Anyway, today we visited Stompin’ Tom Connors homestead and old school.  He was an orphan who left Skinners Pond at 13, went to St. John New Brunswick where he bought his first guitar for $2.00 and began his hitchhiking career.  It was a long haul until he became the legend he is today, and his songs certainly tell the stories.  The Centre in Skinners Pond is open every day, and from 11-1 you can go and enjoy lunch and live music.  

On up to North Cape at the north westernmost extremity of Prince Edward Island, the dividing point for delineating the western limits of the Northumberland Strait from the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  North Cape is quite interesting because it is also the site of the North Cape Wind Energy Interpretive Centre and a lot of wind turbines.  And lots of erosion from Fiona.  (if you didn’t read the last blog, Hurricane Fiona hit here last year and we give you lots of info in that blog)

Did you know there are 63 lighthouses on PEI?  35 are still active - pretty good for an island only 224km long!  Trust me, we didn’t visit them all!

Stopped to EV charge in Summerside and visited the Farmers Market - a year round indoor market in the downstairs of the Holman building, circa 1857.  

We avoided Cavendish, a ‘must see’ by most, and I’m sure my literary friends will groan, but there were 2 festivals back to back there and the highways were jammed with tour busses!  Cavendish is famous for Green Gables Heritage Place which inspired Lucy Maude Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” novels, and includes the Green Gables house.  We did, however, stop for a photo of Lucy Maude’s family home in her birthplace of Darnley, so maybe I will be somewhat forgiven and Marlene gifted me the book so probably after reading it I’ll understand more about the Anne fever!

Hwy 2 (Western Road) took us to Hwy 11 (Enmore Road), there are so many twists and turns, towns and Wow moments - the contrast of the land and the ocean is breathtaking.  

And there are bugs on the windshield!  Not a lot, but we had talked about this back home - remember when you had to top up the windshield washer solution at the gas stations on long trips?  What happened to all the bugs?  Probably killed when our crops get sprayed!!  Another thing to ponder.

Day 70 - 

Charlottetown - off to the big city!  We wish we could have stayed longer at Pleasant View but it’s too far to explore the rest of the Island.  Charging the car hasn’t been a problem, but we’re pushing past our comfort of 4+ hours/day travel time, there’s so much to take in that we get quite tired by the end of the day.  We explored PEI National Park where Fiona has left forests of trees dead from the 150km/h blasts of salt water and sand.  But families filled the beaches with brightly coloured umbrellas and it was fun!  

We are staying in the dorm at University of PEI (thank you again Marilyn), not cheap, but nothing here is.  There’s an slow charger on site and breakfast was included, it’s filled with people doing summer programs and SHAD (see www.shad.ca to learn more) is in full swing - nice to see kids like I remembered from my days at MSS and be around teenagers again.

Met up with Marlene again and she toured us around the city of Charlottetown, Home of Confederation, and we explored the market, one of the galleries and lots of shops. Local indie bookstore, Bookmark, was filled with lots of treasures and we traded Braiding Sweetgrass for Anne of Green Gables with Marlene.  There were two more bookstores but we didn’t get a chance to visit them, The Bookman and Comic Hunter - how that happened I’ll never know!

Also downtown was Northern Watters Knitwear & Tartan Shop where they make the most beautiful wool sweaters right there, knit on Swiss Dubied Knitting Looms, I’m sure some of you know what those are!  And the buttons are made by a guy on Lasqueti Island in BC from yew.  Eric explained the entire process to us with such enthusiasm that we had to go back the next day and Julie spent a lot of time with us finding “just the right one”.  Wanda Watters, owner, President and chief knitter shared some of the history with us and custom made a sweater for me that was ready the next day!

The waterfront is lovely and so is the downtown - lucky for us no big passenger ships in to fill the sidewalks and stores because it was already packed!   

In a park on the waterfront is a sculpture composed of pieces of woods from each Province and Territory set within is a mosaic that tell the stories of ordinary and extraordinary Canadians. and it is called the Canada Tree.  “To grow towards our future, we must draw strength from the roots of our past”.  It is 34 feet tall, weighs 10,000 lbs. and in the mosaic are numerous wooden items such as golf tees, a pencil from Margaret Atwood, planks from the Bluenose II and Jack Pine from the NWT.  The artist, Tyler Aspin, started the work in 1997 and finished the 4 pieces that make up the trunk in 2001.  He was killed by a strike of lightning the same year, aged 32.

Also downtown Charlottetown is the National Historic District and a revitalized area of former derelict and neglected hotels/room houses into a beautiful cluster of 17 heritage buildings, and the original hotel built in 1846, The George, which hosted some of the delegates from the Charlottetown Conference on Union, where PEI became the Birthplace of Confederation has also been restored and the original sidewalk still remains where some of the 23 dignitaries walked from their ships in the harbour.  It has been a huge undertaking to restore the area and it is outstanding.  

Here you also see Roger conferring with the 2 John Hamilton Grays who were at the Charlottetown Conference, two men with the same name! 

They have a rather peculiar tradition here in Charlottetown - it’s called the March of the Crows.  Every evening at around the same time crows gather at various points, particularly the neighbourhood of Brighton, mostly in people’s yards.  We’re not talking just a few crows - Eric at Watters tells us he has up to 500!  People have tried everything to end this phenomenon to no avail - so they have switched tacs and celebrate them!  Hundreds of people dressed as crows gather in Victoria Park each August and parade downtown as part of the City’s Art in the Open Event.  You can check it out on YouTube.  There is a similar gathering of crows around the Grandview exit on the freeway to Vancouver.  

If you’ve had enough about lighthouses, here are some other things of note about Prince Edward Island:

PEI Potatoes: They are the primary crop on the Island and PEI is the largest potatoe-producing province in Canada: 60% of the crop goes for processing, 30% to the fresh market, and 10% is grown for seed.  In Nov. 2021 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency hit a hard blow to the industry when it suspended the certification of exports of all potatoes from PEI to the USA (a $120 million value) under the auspices of the long term Potatoe Wart Domestic Management Plan (Potatoe Wart was discovered in 2020, and Marlene was among the many who worked through COVID to try to extinguish it).  Shipments did not resume until April 2022.  

  

PEI Lobster:  The lobster fishery is significant to the economy, with a total landed catch of approximately 41 million pounds/year, providing 5,000 jobs.

What we saw as the richest and most valuable commodity of Prince Edward Island were the people!  By far

And they call us tourists from away!