Birthplace of a nation – Kayaking is an apt way to explore PEI, but it certainly isn’t the only option. There’s the recently completed Confederation Trail, a 470km cycle route that crosses the island, tip to tip, utilising abandoned railway lines. And there’s also a well-established network of roadtrip routes, designed to showcase PEl’s extensive coastline. Keen to discover more about the province where Canadians choose to holiday, I’d opted for a combination of both when I arrived in Charlottetown a few days earlier. The largest city on the island and capital of the province, it’s a sprawling small town. Working inwards, the malls and chain stores on its outskirts soon morph into the white picket fences of suburbia before reaching the Victorian-esque Downtown.
Complete with horse-drawn carriages, quaint secondhand bookshops, chocolatiers, ice-cream parlours and independent clothing boutiques, it exudes a real nostalgia for a time gone by. It’s easy to dismiss Charlottetown as a pretty though fairly insignificant pinpoint on the country’s map. But it was here, in 1864, amid the bunting and wooden houses, that the idea to create Canada as we know it today was born. It wasn’t without some growing pains though, although now called the ‘Gentle Island’, PEI has had a fairly tumultuous history. First settled by the Mi’kmaq people, from the 18th century it saw a series of colonial invasions and battles between the French and British, and even a mini-invasion by a couple of Americans during the Revolutionary War.
Best things come in threes – Sunlight seeped through the windows as I picked up my hire car (complete with bike rack and bicycle) and headed north-east from Charlottetown to Greenwich, part of the Prince Edward Island National Park. With over 1,000km of coast, there was obviously a tricky decision to be made to decide which parts deserved official protection; as such there are three separate sections of national park along the north shore, and Greenwich is the furthest east. This isn’t PEI’s only trio. If you look at a map, you’ll notice – as chilled-out Tim pointed out – it easily divides into three: the eastern end, the central block and the west end.
The road planners obviously spotted this too, and have designated three main scenic driving routes to showcase the best of the island: the Central Coastal Drive (divided into the northern Green Gables Shore and the southern Red Sands Shore); the North Cape Coastal Drive (in the west); and the Points East Coastal Drive – which I was now following. However, as I soon discovered, most roads in PEI could pass for scenic drives. Stopping at Greenwich Visitor Centre I learned that the Mi’kmaq called the island Abegweit, which means ‘cradled by the waves’ or lying flat in water’.
The flat bit sounded promising so I grabbed my bike and made for the car-free trails that lie within the national park boundary. I’d been told that this was a popular area for visitors but on two of the three trails I didn’t meet another soul. As I looped round the wooden boardwalks and sandy tracks I mused how busy it might have been when the Mi’kmaq were here. Archaeological digs have unearthed relics dating back over 10,000 years, revealing it to be a gathering place. Now it was quiet except for the click of my pedals.
For the final trail to Greenwich Dunes I had to go on foot. As I plunged into woodland, I heard movement overhead. A red squirrel emerged, scuttled along a branch, eyed me suspiciously, then disappeared in a crimson flash. Elated by this sighting, I continued on to a reed-fringed pocket of water where I spied wild roses, bayberry and beach pea; a northern harrier watched on from a tree. When I reached the dunes, the trail’s namesake, there was only a handful of people there. The sand glowed with a pinky sheen and the long grass rustled lazily in the breeze. If I’d managed to find a popular spot so quiet on a sunny day in August, it was no wonder Canadians aren’t keen to shout about this island sanctuary. Mesmerised by the serenity of this beautiful place, I wanted to check out the wilder side of the island, so I set a course for the little-visited North Cape.
