wenty or so kilometres out in the Northumberland Strait, off the north coast of Nova Scotia, is a little island that also happens to be an entire province. In population terms, it’s the Canadian equivalent of the state of Rhode Island, but because Canada is so much bigger than the US, this “island” actually is an island, and twice the size. Still, only 141,000 people live there, meaning that it represents about 0.4% of the total population of the country.
Geographically it’s tiny as well. It clocks in at about 5,600km2, less than half the size of the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. It’s so small, in fact, that there are actually 22 islands elsewhere in Canada that are bigger.
We’re talking, of course, about Prince Edward Island, known to everyone in Canada as “PEI”. Residents like to call it “The Gentle Province”, while on the mainland more than a few refer to it as “Spud Island”.
And that’s certainly appropriate (if a bit one dimensional). Depending on where you get your stats, PEI either grows 90% of Canada’s potatoes (Lonely Planet), or twice as many per capita as Idaho (Wikipedia).
What that means, of course, is that while it may be small, PEI is a real agricultural powerhouse, especially compared to neighbours like Nova Scotia (with its sad economy), or Newfoundland (with its cold gales and lack of soil).
Almost the whole place seems to be composed of reddish friable clay, flattened off (the highest point is only 152m above sea level), and drained by a number of well-placed streams. It’s not the warmest of climates, especially in spring (when the slow-melting ice in the strait keeps temperatures low), but it’s perfect for all kinds of root vegetables.
It’s not just one big paddock, though. There are lots of lovely big deciduous trees, especially in the small towns, and so many “places of habitation” (sometimes it’s the only term that will do) that when you’re driving it seems that as soon as you pass a “Farewell to Summerside” sign, around the next corner there’s another one, saying something like “Welcome to Pleasant View”.
Actually, those two place names are quite far apart, but they do indicate quite nicely the sort of names you find everywhere in PEI. Plenty of them are required, since the island has the most roads per square km of any province in Canada. And believe me, in this part of the world they don’t even need four corners to put an official place name sign up on a pole.
We even managed to stumble upon a “straightening in the road” (the houses didn’t seem to be any more clumped together than anywhere else) called New Zealand. It was at least surrounded by the biggest patch of bush on the whole island, and nearby the sign (if not the “town”) there was a heavily laden paddock of blueberries. But I have no idea who named it, or why.
ooOOoo
When you travel around the island (and if you’re in a hurry, you can probably do it in a day), you begin to think that PEI has really hit the sweet spot. It’s big enough, and with enough people, that the towns are many. And yes, you find commercial strips on the outskirts of a few of the bigger centres. Just like many other parts of Canada, they are long and full of all the chains.
At the same time, though, PEI is both sufficiently agricultural and small enough that there’s still a small town feel about the place. They play little league baseball in wonderfully maintained mini-stadiums in the summer, and no doubt engage in hockey and figure skating at the local arenas all winter long. The retirement homes are plentiful, and well-looked after. And the big, old houses are still being lived in, even though there are any number of newer ones, too. It’s Nova Scotia with more money.
ooOOoo
Prince Edward Island reminds me of an “Old MacDonald’s Farm” set I had when I was small. You started by spreading out a sort-of tablecloth printed with ploughed paddocks and tidy roadsides, and dirt paths leading to the barn. Next you added a few out-buildings, some fences, and a horse or cow. And last, but not least, you plopped down the freshly painted farmhouse, and a few billowy green trees.
You see that sort of tableau everywhere in PEI, and it’s so perfect it can get a bit disconcerting, particularly when you drive along a road with freshly mown grass verges, rather than the more universal gravel and weeds elsewhere in Canada, with the occasional MacDonald’s wrapper (not from Old MacDonald’s Farm!).
I joked to a local that while PEI markets itself as the gentle province, based on the number of people we saw mowing the grass it really should be the province of ride-on lawn tractors. Rather than take offence, he just smiled and said, “We have the highest mower sales in the entire Maritimes.”
If you stay for more than a day or two, though, you soon begin to notice a few other things in the environment as well. On both the north and east tips of the island there are massive wind farms, and it turns out PEI has a laudable goal (especially for a small island with no hydro) of producing a third of its own electricity from renewable resources by 2015.
It was also the first place in the country to ban the sale of non-refillable beer and soft drink containers, way back in 1976. These days, all Canadian provinces run a deposit scheme for such things, and PEI has gladly now followed suit.
And last but not least, the province has what many regard as one of the top ten cycleways in the world. It’s called the Confederation Trail, and runs for 470km, from one side of the island to another, as well as along several well-positioned spurs.
The Confederation Trail follows the road bed of a railway that was closed in 1989. And believe me, when they made the conversion they went all out. I did a short section of the trail one sunny day, and I was completely charmed.
The whole route was paved with small pea metal, the kind you might find in public gardens in Paris. And it was wide enough so that you could safely and easily ride alongside your partner. Best of all, though, because it was a railway bed in the flattest province in Canada, it was a gentle cruise from beginning to end.
I rode along the side of a bay, far away from traffic, and watched some early-arriving Canada Geese taking a rest on the big migration south. As I moved into a forest glade, I scared up Northern Flickers, those big woodpeckers that seem to flap their wings only enough beats per minute to keep them moving forward and just above the ground. And as I cycled past thickets on the edge of farm fields, I stopped to sample wild apples in their genetic roulette of colours and tastes.
Every once in a while I’d come to an intersection, usually where a small dirt track crossed the path, but sometimes also where it met a real road. At each point there were freshly painted gates set out, with spikes locking them into the ground. And when I came to a decent sized highway, as I rode up the cars going both directions stopped and waited for us. In PEI, as in many other places in Canada, the pedestrian (and the cyclist) always has right of way.
As for cross-country skis (the winter equivalent of a bicycle), they’re not allowed on the trail. There’s a real fear that skiers might be injured or even killed by a snowmobile hitting them on one of the tracks. The motorised sleds can sometimes reach 80kph, and they’re demons on corners.
The Confederation Trial is a bike path the way it’s supposed to be. It’s a provincial park, for all intents and purposes, since it’s maintained (with the assistance of volunteers, of course) by the Parks Department. And so it should be, since it’s just as important a natural asset for the province as its campgrounds and beaches.
And the Trail isn’t just a bit of exercise; it’s really educational, too. In fact, if you were to ride from one end of the island to the other (as many most certainly do), and stopped to read all the informative signs, you would come away having completed short courses in botany, zoology, agriculture and aquaculture, and the history and political economy of PEI as well.
ooOOoo
We can’t leave PEI without at least mentioning its star attraction. In fact, as you enter the province on the 12km long Confederation Bridge (a bridge so long it disappears over the horizon), and stop at the Gateway Village, she’s everywhere – on posters advertising the long-running hit musical in Charlottetown, in the shops (yes, you can buy a straw hat with red braids attached), and even in statuesque form in the central plaza (see the gentle giant just below).
She’s Anne of Green Gables, and this is her land…
The television series (a visual depiction of the novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery) has been a favourite of millions of young girls (and their parents). And while we were in the province I gained probably my first real appreciation of Montgomery’s work.
I had never realised before that the series of “Anne” novels she wrote covered the character’s whole life, not just her cheeky school girl days as a Nova Scotia orphan taken in by strict Islanders. One of those novels was set during World War I, and bravely dealt with the impact of the war on those left at home. It’s supposedly the only English language novel of that war ever written from a woman’s point of view.
I also learned that Anne became famous in Japan well before the television craze. Everyone in that country read the novels in the 1950s, and the themes of boundless positivity and joy in simple pleasures resonated through a population attempting to overcome the ravages of war. These days you can buy “Philosophy of Anne” books throughout Japan, and they even have a Green Gables school of nursing and social work in Okayama.
Of course, apart from Anne there aren’t a lot of “major” things to attract tourists on a small island given over, first and foremost, to the growing of potatoes. But it does tend to get to you after a while, especially when you visit Cavendish on the north coast, the place where Montgomery wrote the novels, and the fictional setting of Green Gables itself.
The town is over-flowing with “roadside attractions”, including a lot that have nothing to do with Anne at all (for instance, a Tim Horton’s cheek-to-jowl with a Ripley’s Believe It or Not). I much preferred the cute little road-side takeaway places spread about the province, very much owner-operated rather than multi-national chains, and the seafood restaurants set up by fishing co-operatives along-side the wharfs in many coastal bays. Mind you, I did get a kick out of some of the tourists’ “Dress Up Like Anne” pictures, complete with bright red pig-tails (cost: $3.95).
ooOOoo
“Look at that sea – all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”
– Anne of Green Gables, chapter 33
~originally composed in August, 2012~