Prince Edward Island

First, a repeat of 7th grade social studies. Canada is a federation = a union of partially self-governing provinces, states or other regions under a federal government, rather than a confederation = an association of sovereign states. Prince Edward Island (PEI) joined this federation on 1873-07-01, becoming Canada’s seventh province. Initially, PEI had rejected the idea of confederation (the political process of forming a federation) in 1867-07-01 when Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick joined. Yet, the first meeting to consider confederating was held in Charlottetown in 1864-09-01 to 09.

For inclusivity’s sake: on 1870-07-15 Manitoba and Northwest joined Canada as a province and territory, respectively, followed by British Columbia as a province on 1871-07-20. Facing increasing debt and swayed by the Canadian government’s offer to take over this debt, provide subsidies, and finance railway construction, PEI joined Canada. Yukon separated from Northwest to became a separate territory on 1898-06-13, Alberta and Saskatchewan took land from Northwest Territory and Rupert’s Land, to join as provinces 1905-09-01, Newfoundland and Labrador joined as a province 1949-03-31. Nunavut, became the largest and northernmost territory of Canada, when it was separated from the Northwest Territories on 1999-04-01. The three territories cover 40% of Canada’s land, but represent only 0.3% of the population. The difference between a territory and a province, is that a territory lacks sovereignty. A more detailed look at Rupert’s Land, will be the subject of another weblog post.

The challenge for PEI is that it often refers to itself as the birthplace of confederation because of the 1864 conference, but initially decided not to be part of Canada. This allowed two other places to join as provinces, before it. Yet, I understand. Everyone makes mistakes, and some even try to hide inconvenient facts.

Back to the travelogue

The fixed link or Confederation Bridge = Pont de la Confédération, is a multi-span balanced cantilever bridge with a post-tensioned concrete box girder structure. It carries the Trans-Canada Highway across the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait, It links New Brunswick with Prince Edward Island. Construction took place from 1993-11-01 until May 1997-05-31. It cost CAD 1.3 billion. The 12.9-kilometre bridge is Canada’s longest, and the world’s longest over ice-covered water. Yes, everyone has to find something to distinguish themselves. Travelling from New Brunswick on the Bridge, or from Nova Scotia on the ferry to PEI, tolls are not paid, only in the reverse direction! On the map below, one should be aware that the ferry from Souris goes to the Madelaine Islands, Quebec.

We stayed for three days at a cabin at Grand Tracadie, north of Charlottetown. It was a suitable place.

Tracadie (French) from Telagadik (Mi’kmaw) = gathering place (English), but frequently translated as camping place. It is located close to Prince Edward Island National Park. We drove through the park on our way to Summerside. Here we visited the Eptek Art and Culture Centre. While Alasdair talked to the tourism hostess, I moved 10 meters to talk to theatre hostess, mostly about Cape Breton Island, where she came from. There were no theatrical events until September.

The Prince Edward Island Railway exists no more. It ran from Tignish in the west to Elmira in the east, with major spurs serving Borden-Carleton’s train ferry dock, Charlottetown, Montague and Georgetown and the original eastern terminus at Souris. A spur from Charlottetown served Murray Harbour on the south coast. The line officially closed on 1989-12-31. Rails were removed between 1990 and 1992. The PEI government received a one-time payment of $200 million to upgrade the road network in exchange for not opposing the closure.

The provincial government purchased the properties in 1994, and 75 per cent of the route now forms the basis of the Confederation Trail rail trail system. The station in Elmira at the eastern end of the line is now used as the Elmira Railway Museum. Readers will be surprised to learn that we did not visit this museum on our trip. We did visit Kensington, and its train station.

We discovered that reddish brown dirt shirts are a popular product for young boys. They are designed to avoid showing the red mud colour found almost everywhere on the island.

The next day, travels took us to Charlottetown. Alasdair navigated us to the Baha’i Centre, shown in the following photograph.

We also visited Charlottetown. Among the creatures we encountered was a life sized sculpture of a bluefin tuna made of stainless steel. The scales are made from spoons. Bluefin Bullet was sculpted by Gerald Beaulieu (1964 – ) in 2011. The sculpture is adjacent to the Library and learning center. Despite appearances, the sculpture does not eat people.

Below are two landscape photos of locations close to the cottage we rented.

Of course, these weblog posts always have more information than readers want about transportation. For those not interested in the details, the remaining paragraphs can be skipped. They can be summarized in one sentence: We left Prince Edward Island by ferry.

From 1979 to 2021, the MV Holiday Island, built in 1971 at Saint Catharine’s, Ontario, was a Canadian roll-on roll-off (RORO) ferry, that operated across the Northumberland Strait. A serious fire in 2022 resulted in it being so severely damaged that it was broken up in 2023 by R.J. MacIsaac Construction in Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia.

The MV Saaremaa 1 was then hired to act as a temporary replacement ferry. This was originally built at Fiskerstand, Norway, to serve Saaremaa and Hiiumaa islands, in western Estonia, until 2019. In 2019, the ferry was sold to Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) in Canada to operate on the Matane – Baie-Comeau – Godbout route in Quebec. It should be noted that not any old ferry will do on this route, as in Estonia, ferries have to have icebreaking capabilities.

We left Prince Edward Island on the ferry Northumberland. This ferry was built by Aker in Aukra, near Molde, Norway in 2007 as the car ferry Fanafjord. Until 2018, it sailed on a route that connects Bergen with Stavanger. It uses LNG as fuel. On 1 April 2019, it was planned to be sold to work on a German route. This was postponed. In 2020, it was chartered by the German company Elbferry, and changed its name to Greenferry I. The goal was for it to operate on a newly started route in Germany. In 2021-11, it was announced that Elbferry had gone bankrupt due to a fivefold increase in LNG prices and less truck traffic than expected.

In 2024 the ferry was sold to Northumberland Ferries Limited, for its route between Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island and Caribou, Nova Scotia. Before delivery, the ferry was modified at Fiskerstand. I am uncertain, but this might have been to improve its icebreaking capabilities.

A replacement ferry for the Northumberland Strait is not expected to be ready until at least 2028. This new ferry is being built by Chantier Davie Canada, located in Lauzon, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest continually operating shipbuilder in North America.