Boston to Montreal, Wednesday, September 4, 2019

This morning breaks cloudy and a bit chilly. Deb and Tim are staying on board this morning so Abigail, Deb and Mark rush to the Lido Market Deck for a quick and tasty breakfast and then through passport control onto the island of Prince Edward, the smallest of the Canadian provinces. Prince Edward Island (PEI) has a population of 143,000 and comprises 1/10 of 1% of the Canadian land mass. It’s capitol, Charlottetown, where we are docked, has a full time population of around 36,000 but swells to 80,000 during the day as commuters come in for work and shopping.

The three of us, together with 29 other shipboard ‘friends’ board a coach with Cindy Wenge as our tour guide and Don as our driver. Cindy, we quickly learn, is a PEI native and has just recently retired as the provincial prosecutor, in charge of all criminal prosecutions in PEI. Her legal training and preparedness soon become apparent as we motor through the countryside and she presents her case for the beauty and history of her homeland.

PEI is a rural economy with its biggest crop being potatoes. It is second only to Idaho in potato production. Next is mussel fishing - the province is the largest supplier of mussels in North America - and those you eat or buy in Omaha are probably sourced here. The other big crop is lobster, tons and tons of lobster. The island land mass is sandstone, not granite as others we have visited, hence a relatively high water table, and a slowly eroding shoreline. Charlottetown is where the original confederation of provinces meetings took place in order to form the nation of Canada. PEI population is descended from English, Scott, Irish, French and indigenous Mi’kmaq peoples.

The weather is rather temperate as the Atlantic Ocean does not touch the island shores; however winter is an experience; they receive an average of ten feet of snow per year. Due to the warming and cooling and the sandstone base, the snow often disappears relatively quickly, but there is a lot of it. In 2017 they received one snowfall of 18 feet! Cindy passed around pictures that were astonishing. Access to the island is either by a bridge - the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick, the longest bridge over ice in the world and costing $46.00 for a round trip ticket, or a ferry from Nova Scotia at $76.00 round trip.

The countryside is rolling hills with the highest point only around 500 feet above sea level. One of the subliminal things noticed by tourists but not quickly sensed is the lack of roadside billboards or advertising! Banned! Wonderful! Enlightened! (Is my enthusiasm showing?)

Our motor coach has a sign on the front which reads “Ultimate Anne of Green Gables Experience” and this is one of the selling points for Abigail on this cruise. She is all things Anne. We travel first to the site of the Campbell residence, immortalized in L.M. Montgomery’s books as “Silver Bush” the home of her cousin and best mate. This is still in the Campbell family and is restored to a museum of sorts. We step off the coach to a clearing sky and temperatures in the low 70’s, another perfect day. The Campbell house is educational recreating the happier moments of Montgomery’s early life; the grounds are very well manicured and tended. We finish up by stepping into the gift shop for a glass of coffee, tea, or raspberry cordial and a scone. Shopping is completed by some (most) and others sit on the restful outside benches. We stretch a bit and wander the grounds until our motorcoach is ready to head further on to the town of Cavendish, the town in which Lucy Maude Montgomery was raised.

L.M. Montgomery’s story is very interesting. Her mother died when she was only a small child and as fathers did not act as single parents in those late 1800 times, she was raised by her grandparents while her father left for the prairies of Canada. She began writing stories as a teenager while she worked as a schoolteacher and helpmate to her grandmother at the local post office, mailing her manuscripts off to publishers as she sorted the mail.

Her first, and most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables was written in 1908 and first published in 1911 by a Boston publisher. She went on to write many novels, including eight in the Anne of Green Gables series. After her grandmother died, she married a local minister and soon moved to Ontario, where she lived for the rest of her life. She continued to come back to her beloved Prince Edward Island to visit her friends and family, stating that her heart was always here. She is buried in the Cavendish cemetery and celebrated in the Heritage Centre we visited next. The Centre, newly opened this year, has a Green Gables home set as a museum, and interpretive center and grounds to walk and gift shops to peruse. Very well done and most informative.

As we continued our 26 mile loop of PEI, our guide began a short trivia quiz over some of the things we had learned. She asked 4 questions and the Covert trio were first to answer two - a 50% success. Either we are good students, we were paying attention, or we were close to the front and loud enough to be recognized. We will take the win no matter what. The coach arrived back in Charlottetown by 2:30. Deb stayed in town to meet with Deb and Tim, while Abigail and Mark returned to the ship to lunch and knit.

The shopping trio returned on board shortly before the 4:40 cast-off and regaled the knitting duo with their talk of big glasses of wine and raw oysters for their lunch. The shipboard hot dogs were excellent also. We cast off and sailed out for a two day run at sea, expecting to arrive next at Quebec City on Friday morning. We all retired around 10:00, set for a leisurely day ahead and now over halfway through our vacation.