Let's Go Places: Prince Edward Island

 

Welcome friends!  Picking up the Great Maritimes Bender from last time, we are living every middle school girl's dream.  We're in Anne of Green Gables Land!!!

What's Up With PEI?

Prince Edward Island is relevant for three reasons:

1. Potatoes!  PEI is to Canada what Idaho is to the US.

2. Tourism!  Each year untold numbers of people get lost in the dream of Anne of Green Gables, and two million of them come to visit PEI because of it.  Anne is fictional, but the house with green gables is real.

3. It's where the country of Canada was founded!  More about that in a minute.

Size wise, it would take about 3-4 hours to drive across the entire length of PEI, but a tour guide told me that you will never be more than 15 minutes away from the ocean.  Population wise, approximately 160.000 people live on PEI, with about 80,000 of those residing in Charlottetown, which is the capital city.  Due to time constraints, I focused most of my time within an hour or so of Charlottetown. 

Wednesday Morning - Let's Have Someone Show Us Around

I kicked off my PEI experience by having someone else do the work.  I booked a four hour tour that included a stop at the Anne of Green Gables site.

It looks like the tours sell out pretty frequently, but it just so happened that only three people booked the morning tour.  Too bad so sad but the other two people were on a cruise ship that came in late, so I ended up with a private tour for the public tour price.

The tour started with some chatter about Charlottetown, and the tour guide dropped the stunning fact on me that the country of Canada was founded right in Charlottetown.  This was not the last time that I would hear the story that day, so hold the thought and we'll circle back.

We drove outside of the city and made a few scenic stops.

Then we arrived at the heart of the matter, which was the Anne of Green Gables site.

Here's the deal: we all know that Anne of Green Gables is fiction, but Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote about slightly fictionalized events and real places.  Anne's mother dies when she is a baby, and her father dies soon after.  LMM's mother died when she was a baby...and her father did not die, but single dads were not a thing back in the day, so he turned LMM over to her grandparents.  The green gabled house was close to where she grew up, and she borrowed the setting for her novel.  The practical lesson to take from this is to write about what you know.

I can't say enough how much I recommend reading or rereading Anne before you come to PEI.  As we learned earlier in the year when we read The Blue Castle for CBBC, LMM was an incredible writer.  Her descriptions were very true to the landscape that I saw around me, and I would have missed so many of the details without the refresh read of Anne. 

Without rereading the book, I would have forgotten all about Lover's Lane.

And the Haunted Woods.

Both are shortish trails that lead off from the property, and I had enough time to walk both.  There was nothing in the Haunted Woods that gave off haunted vibes, but I respect LMM's imagination.

I didn't buy anything in the gift shop, but I was tempted:

I bet you've already forgotten about the PEI potato industry, so here is your reminder:

After the Green Gables site, the tour drove through a handful of eye candy locations.

There is certainly plenty of red sand in PEI, but there is also a lot of white sand, so I can check the Trust but Verify box on LMM's descriptions of the island.

The tour ended and I was back in Charlottetown.  It was a bit past lunch o'clock, so I took care of that ASAP.  I've kind of gotten away from eating at vegan restaurants when I travel, but it just so happens that Gaia's Urban Eatery stood out on the map, so I went there.  I ordered the flaming veggie sandwich (grilled veggies with pesto) and it was everything.

With my belly full, it was time for the next order of business.  It had been over 24 hours since my last Legislature visit, so I was due for a fix.

Wednesday Afternoon - Let's Go to the Legislature

Of the three legislature visits that I was planning to make on this trip, I had the least hopes for PEI.  This is the official legislature building, and as you can see, it is closed for construction.  And has been for the past 10 years.  

In the meantime, the government has been operating next door.

The website said that the building was open to the public, and visitors were welcome to sit in when the legislature was in session in February and October, but it really didn't sound like there was much action going on in September.

The building appeared to be deserted, and I felt like an idiot when I marched up the steps and opened the door.

I stopped feeling like an idiot approximately two seconds later.  The man at the security desk gave me a warm welcome and was happy to tell me all about the legislature, the founding of Canada, and lots of good info on PEI.

He talked me through the PEI flag.  I don't have a very good picture, so I'm borrowing Wikipedia's image.  The first time I saw it, my gut reaction was "huh?", but after his explanation, I became a fan.

George Coles was the first Premier of PEI, and the lion is from his family crest.  I'm always using the phrase "the little acorns did not fall far from the tree" when talking about my husband and stepsons, and that's exactly what's going on with the trees in the flag.  The Big Tree is England, and the three little trees are the three counties of PEI.

The last story that the guide told me was an Anne story.  If you are not aware, Anne is HUGE in Japan, and a large percentage of the visitors at the Green Gables heritage site were Japanese.  The guide told me that he went to Japan about 20 years ago, and one night as he was walking home, he happened to pass by a very old woman in the street, and she started talking to him.  She started by asking if he spoke English, and then wanted to know where he was from.  When he said PEI, she asked to see his driver's license to prove it. She then told him that Anne was her favorite story of all time.  She said that when Japan lost the war, there was an immediate push toward New Normal, and a huge part of that was encouraging everyone to learn English.  Anne was selected for the curriculum in schools, so every Japanese kid got to read it.  Japanese culture does not support women speaking their minds and living their dreams, so she said that all of the girls loved it for this reason.  After this random conversation, my guide and the woman kept in touch for many years, and he called her once a year on her birthday.  A few years later when he called, her son answered the phone instead of her, and let the guide know that his mother had passed away, but that she was so tickled that she had a friend on PEI.

As if all of the above wasn't enough, PEI is currently the only state capitol/legislature that I have visited that gave out swag.  The guide gave me two small pins.

Wednesday Late Afternoon - Let's Go for a Walk

I definitely did not reinvent the wheel for my PEI trip planning.  I leaned into Elisabeth's trip recap and selected Greenwich Dunes from the list.  Floating boardwalk?  I was in!

The route that I took was three miles of this gorgeousness.

Wednesday Night - Let's Eat!

I was starving after a long day of adventures.  Once I got back to the Airbnb, I made a short walk to the Gahan House.

They sold oysters with exotic toppings in quantities of one, and at a price where it made sense to get just one.

I had a yummy beer and burger for my main course, and of course some PEI potatoes.

I walked back home and soaked in the atmosphere of Charlottetown on the way.

Thursday Morning - Let's Go to Confederation Park and Talk About How Canada Was Born

I woke up fairly early on Thursday, and set out for a stroll around the waterfront.  This area is called Confederation Park, and it is where the country of Canada was founded.  I'd heard two similar versions of the story from both the tour guide and the legislature guide the day before.

[Standard disclaimer that I am only repeating what I heard as I understand it combined with a quickie Google search.  For historical accuracy you may want to do your own research.]

I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't learn jack about Canada in school.  It was all 13 Colonies and the Tea Tax and by the way there's this other country on top of us.  Well, it turns out that the northern colonies had issues in the Revolutionary era, but ultimately decided to stick with Britain.  Eventually the Canadian colonies grew to the point that Britain needed them to have a central government and to be more independent from the Mother Ship.  Quebec and Ontario united, but because of their relatively equal size, the government was constantly deadlocked.  Tie breakers were needed.

Meanwhile the US Civil War had started, and the thinking was that whoever won might want to have a bigger country afterwards.  It's easy-ish to gobble up a small colony, but harder to take over a large country, so the pressure was on for the Maritimes to join Quebec and Ontario.  But there were so many details to be ironed out, so there needed to be a meeting of the minds.

A delegation met in Charlottetown.  They did business at the legislature during the day, and spent their evenings on a ship in the harbor, where by all accounts they had one hell of a party.  By the close of business, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined the confederation.  Interestingly enough, PEI said "nah, we're good" and decided to remain independent.

Fast forward a few years later, and PEI was in serious debt after building a railroad that linked their three counties.  A sweetener was offered: join the confederation and the railroad debt goes away.  Deal!  PEI was now officially Team Canada.  Ironically, PEI is one of two provinces that does not have a railroad today (the other is Newfoundland).

I reflected on the story, and then started to think about my plans for the day.  My agenda was to see epic things and drive to New Brunswick.  There were a million epic things that I could have done in PEI, but I realized that no matter how many I did that there would still be a million left to do.  I decided to save it for the next trip and move on to see what NB had to offer.  But that's a story for another day.

Who's been to PEI?