21 - Prince Edward Island, Part 2

Saturday, July 29th - Today we visited Charlottetown which is the capital and largest city on the island.  Charlottetown was founded by the British in 1759 after they had taken the island from the French and destroyed Port-la-Joye.  It was named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who was the consort of King George III.  They had this neat bus for guided tours but we decided to just walk the town on our own as the historic district is small.

Here is a photo of part of the harbor and you can tell that the tide is out.

And here is the band shell.

This is a photo across the harbor.  That grassy area is where the French capital of Port-la-Joye used to be.

Another photo of the harbor with the convention center.

More of the harbor with one of the harbor side restaurants.

We walked into the historic district and came across this building which is known as the "Bishop's Palace."  In 1772, religious persecution in Scotland prompted a large number of Scottish Catholics to emigrate to PEI and together with the French Acadians, a very large Catholic community was established.  This led to the establishment of the Diocese of PEI in 1829.  Built in 1875 this building houses the offices of the Diocese.

The Cathedral for the Diocese is St. Dunstan's Basilica.  The first church on this site was built in 1816, replaced by a larger wooden church in 1843 and then a stone church in 1896.  However, that was burned down in 1913 and the current church was completed in 1919.  The church is so big and the area so congested that I had a hard time getting a good photo, so here are three from different sides so you can get an idea of the size.

Here is a photo of the interior.

And the altar.

There were two side altars.

And a very nice organ.  While we were touring the church a local organist was practicing for a concert he would be giving over the weekend and the sound was spectacular.

It is a Casavant organ.  Casavant Freres is a very famous Canadian organ maker that has been in business since 1879 and has made almost 4,000 organs all over the world.  Here is the keyboard.

Two other interior shots showing some of the stained glass windows.

Right across the street from the church was this row of building which serves today as a hotel.  The blue building closest to the camera is known as 'The Wellington" and has been serving as a hotel since before 1812.

Our next stop was lunch which we had in this Irish Pub.

The next block over is Victoria Row, a cobble stone street that has been closed to traffic and is lined with restaurants and shops.

One of PEI's claims to fame is that it is the location where the meeting of the colonies of British North America took place in 1864 and led to the formation of Canada.  This conference took place in PEI Province House which was built in 1847 and serves as the meeting place of the PEI Legislature.  Unfortunately, Province House was closed for renovation so I wasn't able to get a very good photo.

One of the other interesting buildings we came across was this one.  It was built in 1860 as a bonded warehouse for shipments arriving from overseas that had not cleared customs yet.  During prohibition, which in PEI lasted from 1901 to 1948, it was used to store liquor that was being shipped thru PEI but couldn't be sold here.

That was the end of walking tour through part of historic Charlottetown.

Sunday, July 30th - This morning we headed to the town of North Rustica to attend Mass at Stella Maris Church.  Stella Maris translates as Star of the Sea and is a small wooden church built in 1936 that serves the French Acadian Catholics in the area who are mostly fisherman.

Here is an interior shot.  Very simple interior.  Incidentally, they did have a K of C Council and Assembly.

After Mass we started driving the scenic loop that circles the eastern end of the island.  We came across this boat that is used in harvesting farm grown mussels.  You can see a trough on the side of the boat and a lift for raising the strings of mussels out of the water.

And here you can see the floats that hold the strings of mussels.  From the floats they suspend a rope mesh contraption that the mussels grow on.  It takes about 2 to 3 years for the mussels to reach harvestable size.

And this was a very pretty pond across the road from the mussel farm.

Further down the scenic drive we came across this access to the beach.  It was a boardwalk that took you across the sand dunes that line the beach along this coast.  Very nice beach and no one on it.

Our next stop was St. Peter's (or St. Pierre's) Bay.  Very pretty bay with lots of mussel farming in it as seen in the second photo.

Our next stop was for lunch in the little fishing village of Shipwreck Point (Naufrage) where we had a very nice lunch in this restaurant and then took some photos of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse dates from 1913.  The point got its name from a 1719 shipwreck whose survivors first settled in this area.  There was also this neat looking house.

And here is the shoreline to the east of the point just in case you had forgotten about the red cliffs.

Our next stop was East Point which as its name implies is the eastern tip of the island.  Took a photo of the mandatory lighthouse on the point.

This lighthouse was built in 1867 and there was a problem with its location.  When it was built it was located about 1/2 mile back from the point but the charts showed it close to the point.  A British warship was using the charted location, not realizing it was 1/2 mile back and ran on the rocks.  Shortly thereafter is was moved to the point where the charts said it was.  Since then erosion of the point has forced the lighthouse to be moved several times.

This ferry boat is on its way to the Madalen Islands (Iles de la Magdelein).  These are a small group of islands about 65 miles north of PEI in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  They are officially part of the Quebec province.

After leaving East Point we made a short stop at Basin Head Marine Sanctuary whose claim to fame is that a particular strain of Irish Moss grows only in this area.  Here is what it looks like.

Our next stop was the small fishing port of Launching Point where we found these lobster boats tied up as lobster season is only May and June on PEI.

Also lots of lobster traps sitting idle on the wharf.

Our next stop was Panmure Island where I took this photo of the Panmure Head Lighthouse.  This is the oldest wooden lighthouse on the island and dates from 1853.

And in case you forgot about the red cliffs.

Our last stop was Point Prim and its lighthouse.  This lighthouse has the distinction of being the first and the oldest lighthouse on PEI.  Here is what it looks like.

At this point it was 8:00 PM and we had a hour drive to get back to our RV so we headed home.  Too late to cook dinner so grabbed a quick hamburger in one of the local bar/grill room.

Monday, July 31st - Today we drove part of the scenic loop on the western or northern end of the island.  We'd had our fill of lighthouses and beaches yesterday so today was abbreviated.  Our first stop was the town of Miscouche.  The name is derived from the Mi'kmaq term for "little grassy island."  It is an Acadian town whose claim to fame is that it is the site of the Second Acadian Conference in 1884 where the Acadian flag and anthem where adopted.  It is also home to the Acadian Museum shown in this photo.

The museum goes into great detail of the various deportations the British forced on the Acadians in the 1750s and 60s.  It documented stories of individual families and related what happened to them.

From there we stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch.  Who would have thought you would find one of these in a very rural area of PEI.  Our next stop was the far northern end of the island called, appropriately enough, North Cape.  In addition to the mandatory lighthouse, North Cape is home to a wind farm research station.  Here is Pat standing in front of a blade from one of the large 3 megawatt turbines that make up part of the wind farm.  The size is really amazing.

Here is the housing with mounts for the three blades and room for the gear drive and electrical generators.  It is a Vestas model V90-3000 with a 90 meter blade diameter, That means this blade is about 140 feet long.  Vestas is a Danish company that has been making wind turbines since 1979.

And here is why you need a lighthouse at this cape.  These shallow reefs extend quiet a distance off shore.

And here is the lighthouse.  It was built in 1866 and like a number of other lighthouses has had to be moved a number of times due to coastal erosion.

Here is a close up of the light.  You can see the Fresnel lens that focuses the light into a beam.

Here is a photo of part of the wind farm.  This section has 16 smaller Vestas V47-660 wind turbines with a blade diameter of 47 meters and generating capacity to 660 kilowatts.

There is also a another wind farm south of here with the larger Vestas V90-3000 turbines but we didn't go by it.

After this we headed down the west coast of the island and then back to our RV.  Tomorrow we leave PEI headed for Quebec City but with a stop in Campbellton, New Brunswick on the way.