Day 1-2: Charlottetown, PEI, 9-11°

Day 1: Three Provinces In One Day? ☔️⛅️🌬️💨🌞

We decided to travel across to YVR the afternoon before our Wednesday flight because we had an early morning ride, direction Halifax early the next morning. We broke the bank and stayed at the Fairmont right at the airport. Very nice, and we can cross that off some must do list somewhere. We saved some shekels by eating at the airport White Spot while watching the Blue Jays dump the Yankees out of the playoffs! Yes, we’ve jumped on the bandwagon for as long as it lasts.😂

The next morning we were up early and managed to get into the Maple Leaf lounge for breakfast. Notice that we again saved some money with a ‘free’ breakfast! The lounge pass is a part of the perks associated with our flight booking.

Finally on our plane, we sat back and enjoyed the direct flight to Halifax, which took only 5 1/2 hours, or just over two movies. I also had a nice chat with my good friend Ken Wilson as we flew over Saskatchewan. Lots going on there as his first book, Walking The Bypass has just been released! Ken has one more public appearance in Regina, one in Toronto, another in Ottawa, and a reading in Paris, Ontario. His second book is already well underway. Check him out!

After a night in a pretty non-descriptive hotel (Rob it was a Hilton) we picked up our Nissan from the car rental place and went in search for breakfast.

Annemarie had already scoped out a nice breakfast spot.

We initially jumped back on the main highway, but later decided to get onto the back roads as we drove towards Amherst. It was pretty stormy with a major low pressure system roaring in from New Brunswick essentially ending what has been a dry hot summer. We experienced very high winds all day with intermittent intense rain cells bracketed by sunny periods. There’s no landforms here to hold any of the clouds so the weather sails past pretty quickly.

Early on the leaves on the trees provided a magnificent colour display, but the further west we travelled the greener it became. However, things are looking very good for the balance of our trip, and hopefully we will have some good photo ops.

Badly in need of a toilet break we eventually arrived into Amherst where we had seen indications along the way that there was something kind of special to see there. There are in fact, some very nice colonial style buildings in the centre of town, one of which held the required bathroom. Happy days!

It was actually located inside of a church where we found the people to be quite welcoming. In fact, they offered us some really nice local apples which we later munched on while wandering through town. That was our lunch.😆 The church is some 220 years old, reminding me of how much older parts of eastern Canada are compared to similar buildings in the west. Makes a lot of sense. The oldest church in BC is located in downtown Victoria and it’s celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

It was time to move on. We eventually passed through Nova Scotia and briefly entered New Brunswick before arriving at the Confederation Bridge, which of course led us into PEI.

The wind was just belting us as we crossed the bridge. That said, passing over this bridge is sort of one of those don’t miss things to do if the opportunity presents. We will take a ferry back from the other end of PEI in a few days, but we wanted to experience ‘the bridge’. And PM Carney just cut the toll in half!

We arrived into Charlottetown at 3:30 and after a quick change over and a stop to find a nice bottle of wine, we headed for Ernie and Judi‘s place some 25’ east of town.

Ernie‘s family farmed this land for many years. The family home is approximately 100 years old and has been completely redone by Ernie and his brother. A nice way to preserve the family history.

Dinner was brilliant, but it turns that quests are expected to pitch in and help cook the evening meal!😉

It was the first time that I’d met Judi and AT’s first time to meet either. A really enjoyable evening, and many thanks!

A nice drive on dark roads back to the city afterwards!

Day 2: Pilgrimages: 🌞🌞🌞

After yesterday‘s very stormy weather, we woke to a calm world with sparkling blue skies, sunshine and stunning colours.

We are staying in a very old family home near downtown Charlottetown. The house has been converted into a substantial B&B. After a nice breakfast, we hit the road and headed towards the north west corner of the province.

This was to be a day of pilgrimages and discoveries.

The first pilgrimage stop was to view some Travers family history. My cousin Karen and my father have spent considerable time over the years digging up family history and constructing a family tree that runs back many generations.

We arrived at our first destination.

This is Christ Church Kildare Capes, and land for the church and a cemetery was donated by Mary and Jane Travers. There is a plaque to this effect to the right of the church entrance.

I must say, it’s a bit spooky to walk through a cemetery full of people with your own last name! 😬 We had fun linking the names together on the various headstones, and we’ve continued this process even as I write this.

Our family tree runs directly back to Mary Travers who was born in 1783 in Newfoundland, which of course was long before Confederation. Mary was what you might call a person of strong character and principles. By 1831. Mary was the owner of a hotel and tavern located in St. John’s and this was the location for the meetings of the first House of Assembly for Newfoundland. The story goes that the Assembly was supposed to rent the space for all their regular meetings. Mary hired extra servants and experienced additional costs to accommodate these meetings. The Assembly failed to pay their rent so Mary ejected the Assembly members from her premises and held onto the speaker chair, hat, and formal mace of the sergeant-at-arms, and all the other records belonging to the House of Assembly. The Assembly made an effort to reclaim all these items, but Mary refused to give them up and actually placed them for sale in the local paper. The whole matter ended up in the courts and Mary was awarded an amount of 85 pounds, 13 shillings, four pence which was equal to over £10,000 in 2023 equivalent. She apparently never collected the money.

After 1846, Mary with her seven children move to the Kildair Capes where they acquired 3000 acres of land.

We’ve just figured out (I think) that Mary is my great, great, great grandmother! Isn’t that cool?

Just five years after Mary settled here, a terrific storm called the ‘Yankee Gale’ struck this area hard sinking dozens of schooners and killing over 160 people. There is a monument at the church and in the cemetery to the many who perished in this storm. It must have been quite the storm. Anumber of the dead sailors washed ashore and were buried in a mass unmarked grave in this cemetery.

Here are a few links should anyone want to read further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Widdicombe_Travers

https://www.christchurchkildarecapes.org/christ-church-history.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Gale

The second pilgrimage was for Annemarie to the location of the famous book series, Anne of Green Gables. I’ve never read any of the books or watched any of the tv series, but because AT was so interested I tagged along at her ‘request’. The house below is now a museum and contains many first edition books and the original furniture.

The third pilgrimage was to see everything and anything ‘potatoes’ for my dad who probably loves potatoes more than most people.

Harvesting the potatoes grown in the red soil of PEI.

We drove back to Charlottetown and headed out for a much-needed walk and to see some of the town. We ended up going into an Irish pub for a beer and stayed for dinner. There was a singer/guitarist who kept the crowd involved as he played many familiar tunes. Lots of fun!

I think that’s about it for tonight. It’s been an interesting day of discoveries. We are still adjusting to the four time zone changes, but we are just about there.

Goodnight!

Geoff🍻