Pince Edwards Island (PEI)

Monday 7 Oct

We make our way to PEI, which is one of eastern Canada’s maritime provinces, off New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The large island is marked by red-sand beaches, lighthouses, and fertile farmland, and is renowned for seafood like lobster and mussels. Charlottetown, the capital, is home to Victorian government buildings & the modern Confederation Centre of the Arts, with a theatre and art gallery. To get to the island we have to cross the Confederation Bridge:

The Confederation Bridge joins the eastern Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, making travel throughout the Maritimes easy and convenient. The curved, 12.9 kilometre long bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and continues to endure as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century.

The decision to replace the existing ferry service with a fixed link followed a heated debate throughout the 1980’s. Farmers, fishermen, tourism operators, and residents of Prince Edward Island had sharply contrasting opinions about how year-round access to the mainland would affect their way of life and livelihood. Eventually, it was decided that the debate would be settled at the polls. The federal department of Public Works and Government Services selected its favourite bridge design out of several proposals from the private sector, and on January 18, 1988, Premier Joseph Ghiz asked Prince Edward Islanders to make the final decision in a plebiscite. At the polls, 59.4% of Islanders voted “Yes” to a fixed link.

After four years of construction using crews of more than five thousand local workers, the Confederation Bridge opened to traffic on May 31, 1997.

Our first proper stop for today was the Green Gables heritage place. When Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908, most people could only dream of visiting its magical setting. Since then, millions of fans have travelled to Prince Edward Island to discover the place that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery’s stories and characters. So as Janet and Jen both are fans of her books we visited this extraordinary museum.

From here we slowly made our way along the beautiful coast line towards Charlottetown where we will be for two nights. We covered a short distance along the coast line to see the amazing red cliffs and a few lighthouses.

We had a lovely dinner and it was time for the 3 lobster lovers amongst us to dig in:

Tuesday 8 Oct

Today we will be exploring Charlottetown (but we needed to find a shoe maker first as Jen’s left shoe that works best with her moon boot needed some fixing). Charlottetown is the capital of Canada’s Prince Edward Island. It’s on the southern coast of the province. The Province House National Historic Site hosted the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, spurring the country’s birth. Victoria Row has shops, restaurants and the Confederation Centre of the Arts, with its musical based on “Anne of Green Gables.” Nearby is the Gothic Revival St. Dunstan’s Basilica.

There is also a scarecrow festival for the month of October, similar to what we’ve seen in Mahone Bay. They looked different here so Arno took a few more pictures 😊.