Charlottetown to Cavendish
This is actually for Thursday, June 18. Today was a pretty busy day and, by the time we were settled in for the night, I was too tired to blog.
We started out at Province House, still in use as their provincial legislature. It was built in the 1840s and was the site of the original meetings in 1864 that led to confederation in 1867. In recent years, the building needed some restoration, so the federal government stepped in through Parks Canada. It is now run jointly as a National Historic Site and a functioning legislature. All of the second floor except the legislative chamber is either restored to 1860s appearance or interpretive displays. This might seem like a lot of space, but the building actually isn't that large. The legislative chamber is about the size of a city council chamber for a small city. Remember that the population of the whole province is under 150,000. Here is a picture of the chamber where the confederation meetings were held, including the original furnishings. They had an excellent interpretive film that gave the background to the confederation meetings and explained the positions of the parties entering into the discussions.
From there we went to Founders' Hall. This is a newer interpretive centre that focussed on the factors leading to confederation, but also dealt with how each province and territory entered into the deal. It was interesting to note that PEI had rejected confederation in 1867, partly because they would pay for, but didn't think they would benefit from, a railway joining Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the rest of Canada. Ironically, they built their own railway across the province, driving them into bankruptcy, and prompting them to join Canada in 1873 in return for a bailout.
From there we toured around town a little bit. It is a very pretty town with numerous historic (meaning old) buildings. We bumped into John A. MacDonald on a park bench and I stopped to have a little chat with him about the events of the day.
Although there was lots more to see there, we had other places to go. We first went to another section of PEI National Park where we observed this erosion of the parking lot.
On our way to the next stop, we found this pretty scene. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do it justice. Because of the sun, I couldn't see it through the camera display and didn't see that it could have benefited greatly from cropping. Maybe I will do that another day.
We stopped at a place that was on the list of stops every tourist must make. PEI Preserves. It was obviously on the tour bus list, as there were a couple of them parked there when we arrived and the restaurant was full of gray hairs. (What do you mean we are gray hairs ourselves?) They make their own ice cream here, but their claim to fame is that they make home made preserves. I think they basically figured there was a need for a place for tour busses to feed their people and had to figure out an angle to attract them. While there, we ran into these two Scotts making a racket outside.
They had a couple of pretty walking trails on the property, mimicing trails in the books. The site is surronded by a golf course, so every once in a while you pop out onto it.
From there we went down to the shore. Here is an eroded cliff near the beach.
Here are a few people on the beach. The previous cliffs are in the background. Although it was a beautiful day, we are still early in the season and there aren't too many people around yet. And the water is still pretty cold.
Here I am wading again. I got past my ankles this time. You get used to the cold after a while, but it would be pretty chilly for swimming.
We found a hotel around 5:30 and arrived at the Fisherman's Wharf lobster supper at 6. Carla had recommended we stop there. Good call Carla! They had a 60 foot salad bar to go with the lobster and unlimited seafood chowder and dessert. We were there until 7:30! It takes a long time to eat a lobster, you know.
Great weather today. About 25 degrees. The wind came up late in the day, making for a cooler evening.
We started out at Province House, still in use as their provincial legislature. It was built in the 1840s and was the site of the original meetings in 1864 that led to confederation in 1867. In recent years, the building needed some restoration, so the federal government stepped in through Parks Canada. It is now run jointly as a National Historic Site and a functioning legislature. All of the second floor except the legislative chamber is either restored to 1860s appearance or interpretive displays. This might seem like a lot of space, but the building actually isn't that large. The legislative chamber is about the size of a city council chamber for a small city. Remember that the population of the whole province is under 150,000. Here is a picture of the chamber where the confederation meetings were held, including the original furnishings. They had an excellent interpretive film that gave the background to the confederation meetings and explained the positions of the parties entering into the discussions.From there we went to Founders' Hall. This is a newer interpretive centre that focussed on the factors leading to confederation, but also dealt with how each province and territory entered into the deal. It was interesting to note that PEI had rejected confederation in 1867, partly because they would pay for, but didn't think they would benefit from, a railway joining Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the rest of Canada. Ironically, they built their own railway across the province, driving them into bankruptcy, and prompting them to join Canada in 1873 in return for a bailout.
From there we toured around town a little bit. It is a very pretty town with numerous historic (meaning old) buildings. We bumped into John A. MacDonald on a park bench and I stopped to have a little chat with him about the events of the day.
Although there was lots more to see there, we had other places to go. We first went to another section of PEI National Park where we observed this erosion of the parking lot.
On our way to the next stop, we found this pretty scene. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do it justice. Because of the sun, I couldn't see it through the camera display and didn't see that it could have benefited greatly from cropping. Maybe I will do that another day.We stopped at a place that was on the list of stops every tourist must make. PEI Preserves. It was obviously on the tour bus list, as there were a couple of them parked there when we arrived and the restaurant was full of gray hairs. (What do you mean we are gray hairs ourselves?) They make their own ice cream here, but their claim to fame is that they make home made preserves. I think they basically figured there was a need for a place for tour busses to feed their people and had to figure out an angle to attract them. While there, we ran into these two Scotts making a racket outside.
Next stop was the Anne of Green Gables House, another part of PEI National Park. It is a reconstruction of the original on the same property. Here is Celeste in front of the house.
From there we went down to the shore. Here is an eroded cliff near the beach.
Here I am wading again. I got past my ankles this time. You get used to the cold after a while, but it would be pretty chilly for swimming.
We found a hotel around 5:30 and arrived at the Fisherman's Wharf lobster supper at 6. Carla had recommended we stop there. Good call Carla! They had a 60 foot salad bar to go with the lobster and unlimited seafood chowder and dessert. We were there until 7:30! It takes a long time to eat a lobster, you know.
Great weather today. About 25 degrees. The wind came up late in the day, making for a cooler evening.
posted by Celeste at
5:50 a.m.
1 Comments:
Hi there,
I work on behalf of Tourism Prince Edward Island and enjoyed reading your post. I thought you might be interested in a new site launched today called Share Your PEI - www.shareyourpei.com. Here you can share your photos and experiences with other travellers. We'd love your input!
By
Devon, at 1:37 p.m.
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