We arrived on Prince Edward Island (or, as the locals call
it, PEI) late yesterday afternoon, after a punishing 5 hour drive from Halifax through
pissing Atlantic rain. Well, when I say ‘punishing’, I mean punishing for the
driver, which was not me. Drove across a 14 km bridge from New Brunswick into
PEI, then a 50k drive into Charlottetown, the main city on the island. Thanks
to the GPS, we found the B&B and settled in, then walked through the rain
(which was thankfully now only a persistent drizzle) for an early dinner at an
Irish microbrewery. Again, Canada seems to be all about the microbrewery (not
that I’m complaining). The pub we ate at was having an IPA festival later on
that night, where 6 regional microbreweries were bringing their IPAs for a
horizontal tasting. Sounded great, but we were tired. Retired to the room to
watch ‘The Muppets’ on the television, then a nice sleep.
Today has been a strange day. It was to be a day of driving,
so we drove to the nearest petrol station where the guy who owned the station
filled up the tank for us, and wiped the front and back windows. A lovely
throwback to the pre self-serve days, which I’d only ever seen represented in
movies. This place is different to the rest of Canada. Saw many, many beautiful
scenes of harbours and beaches while driving, and we stopped for photos at
some, and Cathy dipped her feet in the Atlantic Ocean (which she adds to her
collection of Pacific, Indian and Arctic). At one of the harbours, you could
literally see the tide going out, and it looked quite turbulent and strong. Not
the sort of thing that comes across well in a photograph, but I tried. Speaking
of which, I need to put some photographs up, this blog post probably isn’t
doing it justice.
We then drove to Green Gables, of ‘Anne of Green Gables’. Apparently
this is de rigueur in PEI, and is something Cathy really wanted to do (she
started re-reading the book last night, and is reading it next to me right
now). I know nothing of the book, but Cathy does, and I suspect my mum does
too. Anyway, the house and the garden were magnificent. I think Cathy was
worried that I was bored because I don’t know the book, but the garden was
really pretty. We saw some chipmunks scurrying around hither and thither
(sorry, some of the literariness must have rubbed off) – I’d never seen one
before.
Stopped for lunch at a place near Kensington where we had a
lovely lunch, but were served by a robot. In response to every single question,
we got ‘you’re very welcome!’, in the same tone each time. We struggled not to
laugh – if we did, that would have been most rude, but we’ve certainly been
taking the piss for the rest of the afternoon. We made our leisurely way back
into town via a place called Victoria, which is on the southern coast of PEI,
and is no more than four blocks big, but the houses (not to mention their view
over the water) are beautiful. Most are for sale, which says a lot about the
economics of the region, but I nonetheless took a photograph of Cathy in front
of the house she wants us to buy.
Came back to Charlottetown where we went to the location
where the first meaningful discussions towards Canadian federation took place.
I’m a bit of a junkie for that sort of stuff, and I found it most illuminating.
Many of the things I thought I knew about Canadian history and geography were
plainly wrong. I thought it ironic that the conference was held on PEI because
nobody here wanted to join (they couldn’t be bothered travelling to talk about
something they didn’t want to do, but seemed happy enough to host others) and
then eventually stayed out of the federation because they didn’t want to
contribute to a railway system on the mainland which they wouldn’t be able to
use. The irony was that PEI built their own railroad which quickly went broke,
which forced them to beg to Canada to be let into the Federation and to take
over their debt. What I want to know (and what wasn’t explained at the museum)
is why Canada agreed. I wasn’t surprised to find that British Columbia only
agreed to join on condition that they get connected to the eastern provinces
through a railroad: the parallels with WA are obvious. Anyway, I have my
Penguin History of Canada to read now – have to say I was disappointed that I
couldn’t buy a copy of the Canadian constitution at the gift shop.
PEI is truly beautiful and is well worth the $45 toll they
will charge us tomorrow to leave the island – no, I am not kidding. The scenery
is marvellous, the food is fresh, and it’s nice to drive around in (when it’s
not raining). If I had one complaint, it would be that it’s all so white. There’s
hardly any ethnic or cultural diversity to be seen anywhere, apart from food.
The other is that it’s almost impossible to find bottleshops. Cathy had the
bright idea that we get some takeaway and a bottle of wine and come back to the
room to sit on the balcony, and it took us 75 minutes to achieve this goal.
Bottleshops here are provincial monopolies, but whereas in some provinces you’d
never know this was the case (we never had issues in Vancouver), in
Charlottetown, there are *none* in the main part of town. At all. We drove
around for quite some time looking for one, while I nursed my can of the
national ginger ale – ‘Canada Dry’ seemed quite a fitting name, for I’d felt
Prohibition had returned. We could have gone to the PEI counterpart to Fyshwick
if we’d chosen to, but couldn’t find bubbles for love nor money. Seriously,
PEI, you make Iceland look good. By the time we found a bottleshop, I was fully
prepared to buy a nice expensive bottle for Cathy, but they only had one type
of champagne in the fridge. I reiterate my earlier remarks vis-à-vis Iceland
(like the way I stuck a French word in there – formidable!).
So we’re back at the room; tomorrow we rise early to drop
the car off at Moncton before getting the overnight train to Montreal.
No comments:
Post a Comment