Robin & Karen Living the Dream: Touring Prince Edward Island

On July 11 we boarded the ferry to Prince Edward Island from Caribou, Nova Scotia to Wood Islands, PEI - no reservation needed, took about 75 minutes and it was free. Getting onto PEI is free, leaving costs. We decided to tour all around the island, following 3 coastal scenic routes, the first being Points East. The soil and the sand of PEI is red, quite striking to see! We passed crops of soybeans, corn, barley, potatoes, and the occasional vineyard & we stopped at a few beaches.

Our first lighthouse was Cape Bear Lighthouse, which is also a Marconi station & was the first Canadian station to receive the Titanic's distress call. They had used lobster traps for sale for $15- unbelievably heavy.

We were saddened to see so many trees knocked down and were told it was from Hurricane Fiona last fall.

We were happy to find a free showers at Panmure Island Provincial Park where we watched a couple of fellows going kite surfing.

We passed a large complex called the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute, apparently land in PEI is relatively inexpensive and so they have chosen to set up there and teach young females from Taiwan studying Buddhism.

We stopped in Georgetown at Shoreline Designs to see some beautiful Seaglass jewelry, chat with the owner and to look for Seaglass on his beach as he suggested.

On to the town of Souris, where we spent the night parked in a small park, overlooking the ferry to the Madeline Islands. A pleasant town with a great beach & lots of seaglass hunters. And a good place to sample local beer!

We spent some time at Basin Head Provincial Park that boasts "singing sand" - apparently a protected marine environment used for over 12,000 years first by Indigenous, then French, then English for fishing, shellfish and then farming in the area. The docks were built in 1937 to support 3 to 4 canning operations on the harbor, canneries closed in the 1950's and it is now a recreation area, and yes, the sand squeaks when you walk on it. Hundreds of people enjoying the day.

We made it to East Point, which is the eastern tip of the island - a lighthouse & a fog alarm building - one of only a few intact left on PEI. Each fog alarm has a distinct pattern.

some fun seaglass art

We were now on the north shore, and stopped at Naufrage Harbor - we spent the night in the lighthouse parking area near a old cemetery where they buried folks that washed up from a shipwreck in 1719.

We were lucky to see a fishing boat come in so we followed a lady in an orange vest that said "dockside observer". She was recording and weighing all of the catch which had to be exact according to their commercial license. The fisherman came in with 700 pounds of halibut - one being about 250 pounds which will go on ice until the next day and then be taken to a fish market in Charlottetown. They are not allowed any fish for their own consumption - that they have to buy!

We’ve been seeing some potato trucks and actually picked up some that had fallen off the truck and had fresh potatoes for supper!

We stopped at Greenwich PEI National Park Interpretive Centre - excellent with a lot of information about the birds, the parabolic sand dunes and how mussels are farmed in the bay near here.

Too hot 30° feels like 37 Celsius! We headed to Charlottetown for the weekend Farmers Markets and spent the night at the Walmart. The indoor Farmers Market was not very big, we bought some new potatoes and talked to a fellow with some amazing old pieces of Seaglass.

We followed the Heritage Walk ,admiring historic buildings from the 1800s and walked down near the waterfront .Lunch at an Irish pub with Guinness beers.

The next day we found the outdoor downtown Farmers Market with three Seaglass sellers who were generous enough to show us their stashes. We were impressed that the street corners have small flowerbeds which were adopted by different people and by businesses.

We broke down and paid $34 for a power site at PEI National Park, Stanhope Campground as it was 30° and we needed our air-conditioning.

Some observations from PEI - most people are living "rural" with few actual towns, signs were all in English and in French, traffic lights are different shapes - red square, yellow diamond, green round, rural areas have huge lawns that are well kept, roads, sand & dirt red and there were lots of roadside self-serve potato and strawberry stands.

On to Cavendish to the Lucie Maud Montgomery National Historic Site - Green Gables commemorating the author LM Montgomery who wrote the book " Anne of Green Gables" in 1905. She based the books on her childhood in PEI and used the house that she visited as a child in the books, Green Gables. It has been refurnished appropriate to the time & we were able to tour it.

some good entertainment

Anne of Green Gables has been published in over 30 languages!

In 1909 people started going to Cavendish looking for Avonlea and Green Gables after reading the book. By the 1920's Green Gables was a popular tourist destination and millions of tourist from around the world have walked through. The area has two amusement parks, Wax World of the Stars and countless accommodations.

We stopped in. Summerside to walked along their 7 km boardwalk & on the way we found some mussels to buy for $2 a pound, excellent!

delicious mussels

people fishing for mackerel off almost every pier in the Maritimes

We headed north towards Tignish on the North Cape Coastal Dr., leisurely driving from 60 - 80 km/hr, occasionally down to 40 km/hr. We stopped at the shellfish museum at Bideford - found it fascinating. The main feature was about the Malpeque oysters that are farmed on PEI.

mussel "farm"

We continued our drive north on the to the North Cape - the longest rock reef in North America where the waters of the Northumberland Strait meet the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We visited the North Cape Wind Energy Interpretive Centre - lots to read and see and videos to watch - mainly related to wind energy and the wind turbines at this site. PEI gets 25% of its electricity from wind power. We walked out on the rock reef at almost low tide.

the top of a wind turbine

the rock reef we walked out on, thru water to our knees

a fossil that we found

some fun nightlights, always something interesting in gift shops

We stopped at the West Point Lighthouse parking lot near Cedar Dunes Provincial Park on the southwest point of PEI, spent the night and found a lot of nice Seaglass on our walks.

We couldn’t miss the Canadian Potato Museum in O'Leary. We spent two hours there and learned a lot about the history of potatoes, the introduction of them around the world, how they are grown and harvested, different varieties, pests and products made, and of course lunch.

Next stop the Bottle Houses (one man's passion to save bottles before recycling) - consisting of three buildings - a six gable structure, a chapel and a tavern - 25,000 bottles surrounded by absolutely beautiful gardens and a pond.

We now headed west to Victoria by the Sea, where we saw many potato fields, potato equipment & more red soil. We stopped at a viewpoint to see the Confederation Bridge - impressive and very long, 12.9 km - opened in 1997 and took four years to build. Before this only the ferry and ice boats were the way to get to PEI.

At the start of the bridge in Borden-Carlton there’s a collection of tourist shops and a place to watch a video on the planning, building and opening of the bridge. The bridge toll for two axle vehicles including us was $50.25. You only pay leaving PEI by either the ferry or the bridge. There is no stopping allowed on the bridge but it did have shoulders for emergencies. The speed limit was 80 km/hr with call phones and traffic lights every 750 m. It took about 12 minutes to cross into New Brunswick.