Canada Guide
The Maritime Provinces
Prince Edward Island
The freckly face and pert pigtails of Anne of Green Gables are emblazoned on much of PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND's publicity material, and her creator, local-born novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery, was the island's most gushing propagandist, depicting the place floating "on the waves of the blue gulf, a green seclusion and haunt of ancient peace… invested with a kind of fairy grace and charm". Radical William Cobbett, who soldiered here in the 1780s, was not so dewy-eyed, and saw instead "a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp… a lump of worthlessness [that] bears nothing but potatoes". Each had a point. The economy may not be as uniform as Cobbett suggested, but PEI does remain thoroughly agricultural – Million-Acre Farm, as it's sometimes called – and it can often be beguiling: Canada's smallest province – a crescent-shaped slice of land separated from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by the Northumberland Strait – boasts a long and complicated shoreline that is serrated by dozens of bays and estuaries, where the ruddy soils and grassy tones of the rolling countryside are set beautifully against the blue of the sea, with gorgeous sandy beaches banding much of the north shore.
Charlottetown, the capital and only significant settlement, sits on the south coast beside one of these inlets, the tree-lined streets of its tiny centre occupying a chunky headland that juts out into a wide and sheltered harbour. With its graceful air, wide range of accommodation and good restaurants, this is easily the best base for exploring the island, especially as almost all of PEI's villages are formless affairs whose dwellings ribbon the island's roads. One exception is Victoria, a tiny old seaport southwest of Charlottetown, which makes a peaceful overnight stay. Otherwise, Orwell Corner Historic Village, just to the east of the capital, is an agreeable attempt to re-create an island village as of 1890; Cavendish, on the north coast, boasts the house that Montgomery used as the setting for her books; and, close by, Prince Edward Island National Park, the island's busiest tourist attraction, has kilometres of magnificent sandy beach.