The freckly face and pert pigtails of Anne of Green Gables are
emblazoned on much of PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 's publicity
material, and her creator, local-born novelist Lucy Maud
Montgomery, was the island's most gushing propagandist, depicting
the place floating "on the waves of the blue gulf, a green
seclusion and haunt of ancient peace … invested with a kind of
fairy grace and charm". Radical William Cobbett, who soldiered here
in the 1780s, was not so dewy-eyed, and saw instead "a rascally
heap of sand, rock and swamp … a lump of worthlessness [that] bears
nothing but potatoes". Each had a point. The economy may not be
quite as uniform as Cobbett suggested, but PEI does remain
thoroughly agricultural - Million-Acre Farm, as it's sometimes
called. On the other hand, the country's smallest province - a
crescent-shaped slice of land separated from Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick by the Northumberland Strait - can be beguiling. The
island's long and complicated shoreline is banded by sandy beaches
in the north and serrated by dozens of bays and estuaries, where
the ruddy soils and grassy tones of the rolling countryside are set
beautifully against the blue of the sea.
Charlottetown , the capital and only significant
settlement, sits on the south coast beside one of these inlets, the
tree-lined streets of the older part of town occupying a chunky
headland that juts out into a wide and sheltered harbour. With its
graceful air, wide range of accommodation, and good restaurants,
this is easily the best base for exploring the island, especially
as almost all of PEI's villages are formless affairs whose
dwellings ribbon the island's roads. One exception is
Victoria , a tiny old seaport southwest of Charlottetown,
which makes a peaceful overnight stay. Otherwise, Orwell Corner
Historic Village , just to the east of the capital, is an
agreeable attempt to re-create an island village as of 1890;
Cavendish , on the north coast, boasts the house that
Montgomery used as the setting for her books; and, close by,
Prince Edward Island National Park , the island's busiest
tourist attraction, has kilometres of magnificent sandy beach.
Further east is the rough-and-ready township of Souris ,
ferry port for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands
) and located just down the coast from the beach and fishery
museum of Basin Head . In the west, the chief interest is
social: descendants of PEI's Acadian settlers - once the
majority of the population - today constitute some fifteen percent
of the island's inhabitants and many of them live on the wedge of
land that runs down from the village of Wellington to
Cap-Egmont.
PEI is a major holiday spot, so there's plenty of
accommodation to choose from with B&Bs, inns, cottages
and campsites liberally sprinkled across the whole of the island -
though it's still a good idea to make advance reservations during
July and August. Note, also, that although it's easy to reach
Charlottetown by bus the rest of PEI has hardly any public
transport . On a culinary note, PEI has a reputation for the
excellence of its lobsters , which are trapped on the west
side of the island during August and September and in the east from
June to July. A number of restaurants specialize in lobster dishes,
but keep a look out for local posters advertising lobster suppers,
inexpensive buffet meals served in some church and community halls
during the summer.