PEI is named after King George’s fourth son as the island was under British control beginning in 1763. In 1861 Canada gained their independence, in 1864 they became Confederation of Canada with providences and in 1873 PEI joined Canada as its smallest providence. The Confederation charter was put together and ratified in Charlottetown. C-town is sometimes referred to as the Philadelphia of Canada and PEI is the Kentucky of Canada because of all the horses. There are 152,000 people in the whole island. They are the 3rd largest grower of potatoes in North America. Back in the early part of the century, fox stoles were the rage so they raised foxes. When furs went out of style, the foxes were released into the wild. We were supposed to see them often but we never saw even one!
Our first stop of the day is at Cows Creamery Factory where we watched video’s of the making of ice cream and cheese and then ate a bowl or cone of the ice-cream of our choice. Yummy!
On our tour of Charlottetown we saw numerous churches, government buildings the harbor, many parks and busy downtown streets. The towers of St. Dustan Basilica Catholic Church grace the city skyline and no building can go higher than these towers. Surrounding the church are many other old churches like St. Paul’s Anglican Church built by ship builders so that the roof line is much like the hull of a ship. In Boulder park are large rocks from each of the providences and a memorial fountain. PEI has no rocks or other aggregate so almost all of their building materials are imported.
We were led on a walking tour by Sam who was dressed in period costume of 1864 when PEI joined the confederation. We walked around Providence House, the seat of PEI government, although it is undergoing a complete renovation so that all the offices are in surrounding buildings. He also told us about the history of the building of the Confederation Center for the Arts which is for all of Canada because each person in the country gave $.30 towards the cost of the building.
This is where we attended the musical production of “Anne of Green Gables” - the longest running annual musical in the world at 53 years and going strong. It was a professional production and very nicely done. I loved it, John didn’t fall asleep during it! Thats high praise!
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