Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island (PEI) is Canada's smallest and perhaps the country's most independent-minded province. It is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the northeast side of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the country's eastern, maritime region. It is best known for two products, one cultural, the other agricultural. The island is the birthplace of L. M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables children's book series, and it is renowned for its potato crop.

General Information

Name: Prince Edward Island (PEI) is named for Edward Augustus, son of Britain's King George III. The island is often referred to as Spud Island, the Cradle of the Confederation, the Million-Acre Farm, and the Garden of the Gulf, or simply the Island. Its original inhabitants, the Mi'kmaqs, called the island Abegweit, meaning "cradle in the waves."

Provincial Symbols

• Bird: Blue jay
• Flower: Lady's slipper
• Tree: Red oak
• Motto: Parva sub ingenti (Latin: "The small under the protection of the great")

Capital: The capital of PEI is Charlottetown, the island's biggest and most metropolitan city. However, Charlottetown is Canada's smallest provincial capital. Everything within it can be reached by foot. Its historical importance springs from its location as the "cradle of the confederacy," the parliamentary buildings where the founding fathers of the Dominion of Canada created the country in 1867. The capital itself was founded in 1768 across the harbor from Port La Joye, the abandoned Acadian city of the island's first French settlers.

People & Culture

Population: According to Statistics Canada estimates, there were 164,318 people living on the island as of November 2021, making it Canada's smallest but most densely populated province. Most British and other European residents arrived after the expulsion of the French after 1750.

PEI is among Canada's most Anglo-Celtic provinces according to the 2016 census, with 85,140 respondents of British Isles origin, including Scottish and Irish. The French population, a combination of Acadians who avoided the eighteenth-century deportation and more recent immigrants, totaled 25,950 people. In 2016 there were 4,960 PEI residents of Indigenous descent and 6,485 of Asian descent. The island also has small populations of residents with origins in the Caribbean; Latin, Central and South America; Africa; and Oceania. The majority of the non-European residents arrived beginning in the late twentieth century.

The island is made up of three counties of equal size: Prince to the west, Kings to the east, and Queens in the center. Though the province is Canada's most densely populated, it is also, along with Nunavut, its most rural. During most of the twentieth century, the island gradually lost citizens to the mainland. A growing percentage of the population is retired, which has placed even more strain on the province's economy.

The island's residents cherish their independence, even though PEI is dependent upon Canada both economically and for natural resources. The island's permanent link to the mainland, the Confederation Bridge (opened in 1997), was only narrowly approved. Like the union with the Confederation itself, the bridge seemed to be accepted only as a necessary evil.

Indigenous Peoples: The original inhabitants of PEI were the Mi'kmaqs, a branch of the Algonquin nation, who settled onto the island approximately eleven thousand years ago, before it was an actual island. Scientists believe that the sea rose about five thousand years ago to cut off the island from the mainland, creating the Northumberland Strait in the process. The Indigenous population of PEI saw growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Arts & Entertainment: PEI's main draw is the tourism industry, including that which has grown up around L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables in Cavendish and Queens Counties. During the off season, the island is characterized by its quiet clusters of small rural towns.

The biggest historical attraction in PEI is the Province House in Charlottetown, which is the seat of the provincial government. The original negotiations that led to the Dominion of Canada were held at this site in 1864. The house combines historical preservation and reenactment with the day-to-day workings of the government.

Environment & Geography

Topography: The 5,700-square-mile island is almost completely rural. Except for two cities, the rest of PEI is mostly villages and towns scattered amidst its rolling hills. Geologists speculate that receding glaciers scarred the surface of the island, creating its mixture of rolling hills and nearly completely flat plains.

The island itself is nine miles from New Brunswick and fourteen miles from Nova Scotia, separated by the Northumberland Strait. The Gulf of St. Lawrence lies to its north.

The construction of the Confederation Bridge, linking PEI to the mainland, presented several problems. Farmers were concerned that the bridge and its concrete pylons would disrupt the natural thaw of the ice floes, which would in turn delay the spring thaw on the island and harm crops. Another concern was the possibility of unrestrained tourism, an industry that more than doubled within the first six years after the construction of the bridge. Either way, the bridge challenged the islanders' sense of individuality and isolation, at the same time bringing the island into the twentieth century.

Natural Resources: There are minerals in the rock of PEI, but none in any significant amounts. The soil, however, is different from that of a typical sandy island, and almost half of the land has been cleared for farming.

Residents claim that the island's trademark red soil is responsible for its famous potato crops (the redness comes from a high amount of iron oxides). Compared to other maritime provinces, which are heavily wooded, PEI's patchwork of fields is an anomaly. The forestry industry on the island was exhausted by the nineteenth century. What evergreen forests the island does have are stunted by wind. The rest of the island's trees are mainly spruce and red maple.

PEI is also known for its red beaches, which feature exposed layers of sedimentary rock. Along its shoreline are low, crumbling red sandstone cliffs, which are slowly being eroded by the surf. Visitors are discouraged from walking on the cliffs because they can crumble so easily. The shoreline alternates between tourist-friendly beaches and the red cliffs.

PEI can produce only a minimal amount of its own energy. Instead, the island has relied on fossil fuels, mostly imported from New Brunswick via an underwater pipeline. This increases costs and gradually undermines the island's cherished independence. As a result, PEI has led the nation in wind-energy development and encourages its residents and businesses to pursue energy efficiency improvements. In addition to continuing to expand or commission wind farms, by 2017 PEI had completed its Interconnection Upgrade Project, which involved the installation of two new underwater cables between PEI and New Brunswick beneath the Northumberland Strait that greatly increased electricity transmission capacity.

National Parks: Visitors can find both the cliffs and the beaches on the coastline of the Prince Edward Island National Park. The park is located just north of the capital and is one of Canada's smallest national parks. The shallowness of the Gulf of St. Lawrence means that in the summer, the water is warm enough for swimming.

Climate: The peak tourism season falls during July and August. These two months are typically dry with temperatures averaging in the 70s and at times reaching beyond 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The weather during the rest of the year is much less hospitable. The climate of PEI is exceedingly damp, with a January average temperature of 19 degrees Fahrenheit and an average of 9.5 feet of snowfall each year.

Economy

Several industries have flourished and then died on Prince Edward Island. The first such industry was shipbuilding. Though it flourished in the nineteenth century, the island had neither the raw materials nor the resources to keep up with advancements in new, metal steamships. From 1890 to 1930, PEI specialized in foxes, specifically the pelt of the silver fox. However, few fox farms survived through World War II.

While the province's economy's growth, particularly in the areas of goods and services, was consistent at the end of the 2010s, by 2021, PEI's economy and labor force, like those of other provinces and the nation as a whole, experienced fluctuations due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic declared in early 2020 that led to the implementation of measures such as business closures. According to Statistics Canada, seasonally adjusted employment totalled 80,000 while the unemployment rate was at 9.1 per cent in October 2021. Important industries at that point included agriculture, manufacturing, fishing, bioscience, renewable energy, information and communications technology, aerospace, and tourism.

Agriculture: The potatoes grown in PEI are sold all over Canada, and companies in the province specialize in all types of potatoes. Examples of specialty products include frozen french fries, curly fries and waffle fries, and potato-based pet food.

There is also a fishing tradition on the island, specifically lobster, oysters, and herring. Lobster trappers actually bait their traps with herring. Farmers on PEI once used lobsters for fertilizer on their farms. Today, the island is known for its lobster suppers, which are served throughout the island in churches, common halls, and restaurants. The island also harvests other shellfish, though production was halted briefly in 1987 when one hundred people became ill and two people died because of poisoned mollusks.

Tourism: Since World War II, one of the province's major industries has been tourism. Beaches and other outdoor recreation opportunities, as well as heritage and cultural sites and events, are major draws for visitors. Another major component of the tourist trade is based on local author Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote the Anne of Green Gables series of books, among others. First published in 1908, Anne of Green Gables tells the story of Anne, a pigtailed, red-haired orphan who goes to live with an elderly brother and sister and all of the strong-willed, good-natured mischief she causes. The book was an instant best seller, and a string of sequels followed.

Each year, crowds flock to the town of Cavendish, which has the most relevant L. M. Montgomery sites, including the Cavendish Farmhouse, where Montgomery was raised by her grandparents. Other sites include the Anne of Green Gables Museum and the Green Gables House, which was the model for the green-gabled house in her book. A significant portion of the thousands of annual visitors to Anne Land, as the locals have dubbed the area, are Japanese. Montgomery's book has been a staple of the Japanese literary curriculum since the 1950s, and Japanese women in particular identify with the character. Visitors can often be seen walking around Cavendish wearing pigtails and a boater hat, just like Anne.

Government & History

Government: Because the island is its own province, it has a complete set of federal, provincial, and city government entities.

The legislative branch of the government is composed of a legislative assembly made up of twenty-seven constituencies. Of course, most of the constituencies are rural and have few members.

The executive branch consists of a lieutenant governor, who is appointed to a five-year term by the governor general, in addition to an executive cabinet headed by a premier.

The judicial branch is made up of a supreme court as well as provincial courts. There are no county courts on the island.

History: After thousands of years of Indigenous inhabitation, French explorer Jacques Cartier arrived on PEI in 1534. However, the French did not colonize the island until 1720.

The French Acadians named the island Île St. Jean. It was renamed the Island of St. John when Britain officially took control of the island in 1763 after the Treaty of Paris.

Two years later, the island was surveyed by General Samuel Holland and subdivided into sixty-seven parcels. These were then distributed via lottery to British military officers. Much of the island remained rural, its landowners never actually becoming residents. Those nonowners who did immigrate to the island were forced to pay high rents. Moreover, the British government was often unable to collect the necessary taxes from the landowners. These circumstances created friction between the owners, the renters, and the British government.

Most of the immigrants during this period came from Great Britain, including the island's Irish settlers. There was also a small but significant influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution to the immediate south. The colony officially became Prince Edward Island in 1799, thirty years after becoming its own province (it was previously administered from nearby Nova Scotia).

PEI was the location of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, which eventually led to the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The conference was initially called to discuss the union of the Maritime Provinces but soon led to the much larger union. PEI did not join the union until 1873, with the promise of a few key benefits.

The first of these was "continuous communication" between the island and the Canadian mainland. This led to the ferry system, which was the primary mode of transportation for most of the twentieth century. This is also why the connecting bridge, when it was finally built, was called the Confederation Bridge. The confederacy also took on PEI's debt, which was considerable after the construction of railroads on the island. Finally, Confederation gave PEI the financial means to buy out the landowners and end the "land question" that had plagued its residents since 1765.

The island's educational system was instituted by the Free Education Act in 1852. The island was divided into districts, each with a one-room schoolhouse. There was little regulation of the teachers and little room for advancement past the tenth grade. Nevertheless, the schoolhouses became anchors for each individual community. In the 1970s, this system was replaced with smaller districts and higher standards. Today, there are two regulatory school boards, and the number of schools has decreased, though their size has increased.

Prince Edward Island struggled to fit in with the progress of the twentieth century. Its small size and its isolation delayed much of the postindustrial revolution progress that swept through the rest of Canada.

Trivia

• PEI's Confederation Bridge is among the world's largest continuous marine span bridges, and is the longest in waters that see ice cover.
• The province's coat-of-arms is comprised of three oak trees growing under one larger oak. At the top of the image is a British lion.

Bibliography

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Mah, Ann. “Searching for ‘Anne of Green Gables’ on Prince Edward Island.” New York Times. New York Times, 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.

Pitt, Sally. "Japanese Adore Anne of Green Gables." Canada Now. CBC Digital Archives, 29 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

"Population Estimates, Quarterly." Statistics Canada, 9 Nov. 2021, www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901. Accessed 9 Nov. 2021.

Prince Edward Island Statistics Bureau, Dept. of Finance, Energy and Municipal Affairs. Province of Prince Edward Island Forty-First Annual Statistical Review 2014. N.p.: Gov. of Prince Edward Island, June 2015. Digital file.

Robb, Andrew, et al. "Prince Edward Island." The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, 4 Feb. 2021, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prince-edward-island/. Accessed 9 Nov. 2021.

Rogers, Barbara Radcliffe, and Stillman Rogers.Prince Edward Island & the Isles de la Madeleine. Montreal: Hunter, 2010. Print.

"The Sociohistorical Context." American Speech (2012): 1–21. Print.

Statistics Canada. "NHS Profile, Prince Edward Island, 2011." National Household Survey. Government of Canada, 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.