A tour of Anne's Land and Charlotte's Land
A stone's throw from Green Gables, Cavendish, PEI
Day 7: Charlottetown ~ Summerside ~ Hampton (217km)
I had the best sleep of the trip last night and woke up feeling very refreshed, but we were on a bit of a schedule since we wanted to tour the better part of the island today. Foiled a bit by another B&B guest hoarding the bathroom in the morning, we didn't get out until almost 9:45, and headed straight to BK for breakfast. Their signboard out front confused us with its single-word message: FUGITIVE! Was there a fugitive inside? Was BK so quick with orders that fugitives could grab a bite without losing escape time? We didn't know, but enjoyed brekkie all the same.
Under sunny skies we did a short walk around Charlottetown's downtown. It is small - only 35,000 live here and there isn't a single building taller than five storeys, if that. I kind of expected there to be more in the way of an historic downtown area, but while there were some nice Victorian-style homes on the older streets, that was about the extent of it. We ended up at Founder's Hall, a building that houses an interactive historical exhibit on Canadian confederation and the events leading up to and following the 1867 signing. The majority of the exhibit focused on the Charlottetown conference of 1864, where the idea of a federal union was first proposed.
There was actually a fair bit of interesting information presented. For instance, did you know that the conference was originally meant to discuss a union of the maritime colonies, and only turned into a meeting on the union of all the colonies after the uninvited Canadians (East Canada and West Canada, today's Quebec and Ontario) crashed the party and pretty much took it over. And it only took place in Charlottetown because Island politicians were not interested enough to go anywhere else. Indeed, the conference coincided with the arrival of the first circus in 21 years to visit the island, and everyone was far more interested in that. Even after the conference, the idea of confederation wasn't especially warmly received in all of the colonies. PEI backed out all together and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia went through some rough debates before finally signing on. Eventually, PEI did decide to join Canada, but only for one reason (incidentally, the same reason that Newfoundland joined): it was broke. One more tidbit: the name for Canada was chosen from five options, and you might be glad we got the one we did. The other nominees were Hochelaga, Cabotia (after John Cabot), Tuponia, and Ursala. One of the videos really got us chuckling as they tried out the unsuccessful names, showing on the screen familiar logos such as Hockey Night in Hochelaga, Tuponian Tire, and Cabotia Dry.
After leaving there we drove out of Charlottetown through the green countryside of PEI. For some reason I had the image that the island was quite flat, but in fact it seems to be nothing but endless rolling hills. It wasn't long before we reached the pride and joy of PEI and the reason that so many tourists come here. No, not a golf course, but Green Gables, the inspirational farmhouse for Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. I can only ever remember watching the TV series starring Megan Follows on CBC, but of course the book came first and is well known and loved internationally, especially in Japan, where it even became part of the school curriculum starting in 1952! For this reason I expected to run into at least a few Japanese people there, but we saw not one, perhaps owing to the fact it's now September, and also because the yen is low and the dollar is high. Who knows, but I was a little disappointed. In any case, Andrew and I were most likely the least informed of the tourists there, remembering little of the story beyond a red-headed pig-tailed girl and a white countryside home. So we did the obligatory rounds fairly quickly, and I snapped pictures mostly intended for either sending to friends in Japan or showing when I return. The truth is this though: the building was only the inspiration for the novel; it wasn't set there, and the television series wasn't filmed there either (they replicated it on set in Ontario). Sorry to burst bubbles out there.
Our last sight of the day was Woodleigh's Replicas, much hyped by both my parents prior to the trip. We found the place fairly deserted but paid the steep $10 admission anyway and took a quick walk around. The expansive grounds are covered with 30 some odd replicas of various proportions of famous (some more so than others) buildings in Britain. They were nearly all built by a colonel returned from WWII who wanted to capture as a memory some of his fondest places where he had spent time while posted overseas. So he went to great trouble and cost to build them all by hand, in extremely accurate fashion. All of this was lost on Andrew and I, however, since we haven't travelled Britain extensively and knew only two of the most famous buildings. Oh well.
So it's night now and we find ourselves in a cute little cottage steps from the red beaches and looking out over the ocean. We returned to the ones we had inquired about last night, and while we're shelling out a little extra for the beachfront view, it was definitely worth it watching the sun set from the rocking chairs on our front deck (just like the picture on yesterday's post). We also enjoyed a healthy, homecooked meal prepared in our kitchen - a rarity on this trip. With no internet and not much around, we might get to turn in early tonight and get a little extra sleep. We'll need the blankets, though, as it's forecasted to drop to 2C tonight. Yikes!
Under sunny skies we did a short walk around Charlottetown's downtown. It is small - only 35,000 live here and there isn't a single building taller than five storeys, if that. I kind of expected there to be more in the way of an historic downtown area, but while there were some nice Victorian-style homes on the older streets, that was about the extent of it. We ended up at Founder's Hall, a building that houses an interactive historical exhibit on Canadian confederation and the events leading up to and following the 1867 signing. The majority of the exhibit focused on the Charlottetown conference of 1864, where the idea of a federal union was first proposed.
There was actually a fair bit of interesting information presented. For instance, did you know that the conference was originally meant to discuss a union of the maritime colonies, and only turned into a meeting on the union of all the colonies after the uninvited Canadians (East Canada and West Canada, today's Quebec and Ontario) crashed the party and pretty much took it over. And it only took place in Charlottetown because Island politicians were not interested enough to go anywhere else. Indeed, the conference coincided with the arrival of the first circus in 21 years to visit the island, and everyone was far more interested in that. Even after the conference, the idea of confederation wasn't especially warmly received in all of the colonies. PEI backed out all together and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia went through some rough debates before finally signing on. Eventually, PEI did decide to join Canada, but only for one reason (incidentally, the same reason that Newfoundland joined): it was broke. One more tidbit: the name for Canada was chosen from five options, and you might be glad we got the one we did. The other nominees were Hochelaga, Cabotia (after John Cabot), Tuponia, and Ursala. One of the videos really got us chuckling as they tried out the unsuccessful names, showing on the screen familiar logos such as Hockey Night in Hochelaga, Tuponian Tire, and Cabotia Dry.
After leaving there we drove out of Charlottetown through the green countryside of PEI. For some reason I had the image that the island was quite flat, but in fact it seems to be nothing but endless rolling hills. It wasn't long before we reached the pride and joy of PEI and the reason that so many tourists come here. No, not a golf course, but Green Gables, the inspirational farmhouse for Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. I can only ever remember watching the TV series starring Megan Follows on CBC, but of course the book came first and is well known and loved internationally, especially in Japan, where it even became part of the school curriculum starting in 1952! For this reason I expected to run into at least a few Japanese people there, but we saw not one, perhaps owing to the fact it's now September, and also because the yen is low and the dollar is high. Who knows, but I was a little disappointed. In any case, Andrew and I were most likely the least informed of the tourists there, remembering little of the story beyond a red-headed pig-tailed girl and a white countryside home. So we did the obligatory rounds fairly quickly, and I snapped pictures mostly intended for either sending to friends in Japan or showing when I return. The truth is this though: the building was only the inspiration for the novel; it wasn't set there, and the television series wasn't filmed there either (they replicated it on set in Ontario). Sorry to burst bubbles out there.
Our last sight of the day was Woodleigh's Replicas, much hyped by both my parents prior to the trip. We found the place fairly deserted but paid the steep $10 admission anyway and took a quick walk around. The expansive grounds are covered with 30 some odd replicas of various proportions of famous (some more so than others) buildings in Britain. They were nearly all built by a colonel returned from WWII who wanted to capture as a memory some of his fondest places where he had spent time while posted overseas. So he went to great trouble and cost to build them all by hand, in extremely accurate fashion. All of this was lost on Andrew and I, however, since we haven't travelled Britain extensively and knew only two of the most famous buildings. Oh well.
So it's night now and we find ourselves in a cute little cottage steps from the red beaches and looking out over the ocean. We returned to the ones we had inquired about last night, and while we're shelling out a little extra for the beachfront view, it was definitely worth it watching the sun set from the rocking chairs on our front deck (just like the picture on yesterday's post). We also enjoyed a healthy, homecooked meal prepared in our kitchen - a rarity on this trip. With no internet and not much around, we might get to turn in early tonight and get a little extra sleep. We'll need the blankets, though, as it's forecasted to drop to 2C tonight. Yikes!
posted by CHRIS at 9:30 p.m.
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