At the south shore of Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island,mor PEI for short, lies it's birthplace, Charlottetown. It's a very quaint city of almost 35,000 residents.
PEI is famous for having Canada's longest running musical, Anne of Green Gables. I believe they said it's been running continuously since the mid 1960's. PEI is also the setting of Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous stories Anne of Green Gables, a beloved classic by many, myself included.
You can drive the island, from tip to top, in about 6 hours. At its longest,MIT is 140 miles, at it's narrowest, just 4 miles wide., at it's widest, just 40 miles. The biggest industry is agriculture. They produce potatoes, and provide 30% of all of Canada's supply. Go spuds!
Even though I am a Green Gables fan, I chose not to visit the "homestead" because it is just a big tourist trap now, and I didn't want to huff and puff around a fictional farmstead with 1,500 other people. Instead, I chose to further my engineering knowledge, and picked a tour that went out to the Confederation Bridge, an 8-mile marvel, and also the longest bridge over ice-covered waters, in the world. Even though the weather was cold, rainy and overcast/foggy, we still enjoyed the tour. The bridge was built in the 1970's and cost $1 billion. It took six years to build. It costs $44.50 per car to cross. The bridge links the island with the mainland. Before the bridge, there was only a ferry, or ice boats available to cross. Today, ice boats are no longer used, and the ferry still runs, at $60 per trip.
The south shore of the island is lovely, dotted with tons of potato farms and lighthouses. Lots of property is for sale here, and the going price per acre is about 4,000 dollars. The average home price runs in the mid $100,000's. There is a lot of waterfront acreage for sale, so an awesome view is there for the taking.
So, some mindless trivia - the island bird is the blue jay, even though the island is filled with ginormous black crows (love them!). Roman Catholics make up over 55% of the population, gas cost $1.27-ish per liter (about $5.00 per gallon), and Charlottetown boasts one of Canada's finest veterinary colleges.
Such interesting facts presented here abouty PEI. In another lifetime, I do believe that I could be happy as a potato farmer on PEI being friends with Lucy Maud Montgomery!
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