Canoe Cove and Charlottetown

We spent our time in PEI staying in Canoe Cove with Karyn and her son Rory. Karyn has an absolutely gorgeous house on a hill with a view over Canoe Cove, the Northumberland Strait, the Confederation Bridge in the distance, and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the horizon. I could just stand there and stare for hours.

Canoe Cove doesn't really seem to have a centre, but we wandered the 15 minutes down to a park next to the water, past one of many churches in the area and an old, one-room school house that is now used as a community centre. We actually got to interview a woman who was the schoolteacher there in the 60s, which was really cool. Her husband was a potato farmer (very prevalent on the island) before he got into landscaping.

Rory took us for a ride up to Cavendish to see the Green Gables house and the beautiful beach. I'd never seen ice in the ocean before coming across the bridge to PEI, but here I could get up close. And the sand dunes juxtaposed against the red dirt was beautiful. I could have spent the whole day filming there. Probably was a lucky thing we had to keep moving.

We also spent a day wandering around Charlottetown. My Canadian history is pretty pitiful, but I did remember Charlottetown as the Birthplace of Confederation. At least that much got drilled into my head in school. However, as I took another look at the history, nothing was actually ever signed until London, three years later, with the BNA Act in 1867 (our first constitution) and PEI wasn't even a part of it at that point. And apparently, Ontario and Quebec weren't even supposed to be a part of the Charlottetown conference, originally Britain had convinced the maritime provinces to get together and try to find strength in unity. Ah, whatever, the whole thing is a can of worms I don't want to get into right now. But this is something I'll be coming back to, the constitution should be the basis of Canada.

Anyway, PEI was great, the Islanders were extremely friendly, and we even managed a local hockey game in Kensington. I'd never been to a hockey game, and though I'm not exactly hooked, I'd hit another game if I had the chance. And I really want to go back to PEI and see the other parts of the island. I think what struck me the most was that the entire province is only about 140,000 people. The entire province. After taking 19 hours to drive across Ontario, and not even touching what I would consider the northern parts, to have a province that is 4 hours across the length and 45 min top to bottom kinda blew my mind.