Up West, April 14 – 15, 2011

On PEI, they have a number of quaint local sayings. If you weren’t born on PEI, you’re ‘from away’. A kitchen party from the days of Anne of Green Gables is called a ceilidh (pronounced K-Lee) where there would have been dancing, music, and of course a fiddle. And even though American Idol is one of the biggest shows here (much larger than Canadian Idol), God help you if you’re from the US of A. Hmm, I seem to be getting off topic. Another fun colloquialism is how the west and east are described. You go ‘up west’ and ‘down east’. If you look at a tourist map of PEI, North is not directly up, so it looks like a ‘U’, so it seems you’d be going ‘up’ for both east and west, but now that I have looked at PEI on google, it’s apparent that the west is ‘up’.

My route - Red is getting there, Blue is coming back

North Cape

I took a trip up west for work. I’m teaching Excel to businesses through the community college and the latest one happens to be in Tignish, a 3 hour drive from my house. They’re even springing for a hotel and meals! It’s like I have a real job again, at least for two days.  So I took my time on the drive up and enjoyed the scenic route. PEI is long and slender so there’s the direct route to places, and the coastal route. In the summer the coastal route in gorgeous. In the winter is really nice and even better, there are no tourists (other than me). I saw lighthouses, boats, tons of lobster nets waiting for the season to begin, and those new fancy windmills. There were adorable houses and I passed through a few French Acadian districts where all of the signs were in French. Oh and churches. I saw a lot of big gorgeous churches. One of the great things about travelling on PEI with a map (other than getting to where you’re trying to), is that the distances look much further on the map. You just fly through the towns!

Church in Mount Carmel

I went through Mount Carmel where there is a gorgeous church right on the water, very similar to a church I went to in Ireland, apparently by the same builder and nearly the same latitude, only 5 degrees south. I went by Cap Egmont which has a picturesque view of the water and an interesting tourist trap called the ‘Bottle House Museum’ where there are entire buildings constructed of fully intact bottles held together with concrete. I saw a million gorgeous beach scenes and made it all the way to the North Cape, where there is a great mix of nature, and new and old technology. There were aerodynamic windmills, an antiquated working lighthouse, and gorgeous red cliffs where the Gulf of St Lawrence met the bay with crashing waves. Apparently this spot is a hangout for seals, as I can’t even imagine how cold the water is, but nope I still didn’t see any.  The sun set without any fanfare, and day became night without the bright colors you hope for to end a scenic day.

lobster nets

I then went to dinner in Tignish at a spot called ‘Shirley’s’ where they are also a certified Sears catalog dealer and have a dollar store in the basement. Nice! The kitchen was closed so I loaded up on the healthiest meal I could: cheesies, candy bars, and ADL chocolate milk (the most amazing dairy farm here whose cheese and milk have no comparison). Oh yea it was a good night! Especially since the Canadian chocolate is a much higher quality than Hershey’s, and there’s a much larger variety of chocolate bars. This is one of the best things about Canada. I found my adorable cottage at the Driftwood Cottages, right on the water, and enjoyed a few tv shows on the giant tv before retiring to the jaccuzzi bathtub that was so large a bathing suit would have been appropriate. The cottage was so quaint with a nice fire and two bedrooms I didn’t even need! What a night!

Near Borden, the sun was screaming to come through

The next day the training was quite effective and I went back to Shirley’s for lunch where every head is the place turned and looked at the outsider. Clearly, everyone knew everyone else in this town, and it was as charming and friendly, yet suspicious of outsiders as any other small town.  I had the local special, a scallop burger, as Tignish is primarily known as a fishing village. I got a bun with 5 huge deep fried scallops with the works. Oh my gosh it was heavenly and only $6! I followed this up with fries with gravy as I looked around and all of these hard core fisherman were feasting on a chicken wrap with Caesar salad. Hmm, I would have expected our plates to have been switched in any normal situation.

Victoria bythe Sea at sunset

I left that afternoon for the west cape and saw more idyllic beach scenes. Today the sun was shining and the clouds were giant puffy marshmallows scattered over the blue sky. I also drove by Borden, where my mom grew up, and grabbed some great pics of the Confederation Bridge, the longest bridge over frozen water in the world, that is the link to Nova Scotia. Before this bridge was built, ferries were the only transportation for cars. In fact, my Papa worked on the ferry for years! I drove through Victoria By the Sea, a cute tourist town, just as the sun was setting. I got the sunset I hoped for the previous day. There was bright orange erupting into red between the clouds and ground, and the effect was heighted as a reflection in the nearly still water.

Near Victoria by the sea at sunset with Canadian Geese

 This was a wonderful, but short, trip of the west side of PEI. I met friendly folk, enjoyed entirely private beach scenes, and ate nothing but junk! A completely successful business trip.

Correction (updated 4/18 at 8:35pm) - The confederation bridge connects New Brunswick and PEI, not Nova Scotia. I could just update this, but instead I'd like to include the text my mom sent me (she's now in Texas and loves everytime I learn something new about PEI, especially when it's her teaching me). The spelling is preserved as I sometimes confuse her texts thinking a drunken monkey has written me instead of my mom: 'Borden goes to new brunswick. Islanders will tease u. U engineer u fm away... This is ur mom fm away. Heehee...' Hey ma, I updated it. Thanks for reading my blogs and keeping me honest!