Haven of Tranquillity

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 502, 3 November 1928, Page 16

Haven of Tranquillity

Historic Prince Edward Island

HE only province or state in North America without either a street car or a traffic constable is Prince Edward Island,

and though the island is unique in many things, nothing illustrates quite so well the tranquility ot its life. A complete community in miniature, cut off by the blue waters of the Gulf from the rush and speed of mainland life, the Island is a haven ot refuge from nervous strain and fatigue of every day life and a garden of quiet in a world gone mad with speed.

In June, the island is a perfect little Paradise. It was on a June day that the first description of the island was written and this is how it read: “All the land is low and the most beautiful it is possible to see and full of beautiful trees and meadows. This is the land of the best temperatures.” The writer was Jacques Cartier and the day was nearly four centuries ago. After the storms and anxieties of his sail across the Atlantic, he too felt the gentle spell, the tranquil contentment. of Prince Edward Island. Yet, as the years went by, only a few fishermen came to the island and two centuries were to pass before the first real colonists arrived to till the fertile fields. They came from Acadia,

in flight before the British whom they feared and whose right to Acadia they never would admit. Yet less than half a century elapsed after their arrival, before the British flag followed them to the Island of St. Jean, as it was then called. Some of them sailed back to France, some moved westward to Quebec, and so when the first British settlers came to the island there were only thirty Acadian families left, fearful and wretched, hiding in the woods away from the soldiers. But in the years that passed they settled down again until to-day there are many thousands of happy, prosperous Acadians who trace their descent from those original thirty families. Acadian names are here there and everywhere, through the lists of lawmakers down all the way through civic and official life. iTwo years before the revolutionary var in the United States the Island >t St. John was of sufficient importJ

ance to warrant separation from Nova Scotia and a government of its own, and ten years after that began that flow of Loyalists which founded a great and noble strain in the island’s population. The romantic movement was that of the eight hundred Scottish folk.

brought out by Lord Selkirk in the first of his colonisation experiments. There were farmers and shepherds, carpenters and tailors, teachers and preachers and last, but by no means least, the pipers. But immigration movements stopped quite a long time ago, and to-day Prince Edward Island, which changed its name in honour of the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria’s father, is the most completely Canadian province in the Dominion. Only a very small percentage of the inhabitants originated outside the bounadry of this little province. For a hundred years the island conducted its own independent government, with a Governor from England, and law makers of its own choosing. Then in 1873 it decided to throw in its lot with the Dominion of Canada, and though it is the smallest, perhaps it is the happiest of the Canadian sisterhood.

To-day every acre of this lovely little land seems to be cultivated and bearing rich crops. Ninety per cent, of the land on the island, it is said, is cultivable, and the other ten per cent, of marshland may be made to yield a fortune in cranberries, if present schemes materialise.

There seems to be no actual poverty on the island. Of course there are some unfortunates and there are some of those who will always be lacking even in the midst of plenty and there are those who choose to live in drab and cheerless homes even with the means to make them charming. But on the whole there is an admirable level of prosperity, of home comforts, and appreciation of education and a wholesome respect for the finer things of life. There are men who can make live thousand a year on less than twenty acres and there are hardworking farmers, who abandon the plough, when evening comes, for the steering wheel of a high powered car. The farmer reigns supreme on the island. Even the capital city boasts only twelve thousand of a population. The province has been called the Million Acre Farm, and with just reason, for this is a genuine rural community. Its pace is steady and unhurried. The speed limit for motorcars, in Charlottetown is twelve miles an hour, and the first cars were allowed on the island only fifteen years ago. Nature won’t be hurried by the farmer, and the farmer won’t be hurried by anyone else. So there is no roar of traffic on the island, no clash of trucks and trams over noisy asphalt, no screeching of brakes. You have the curious sense of having dropped into an English colony, of a century ago, a colony which has escaped the changes of the years. All the wheels of business and government are revolving smoothly, of course, but the visitor is only aware of the leisure of the life. Here is the Legislative building hobnobbing in the old English square with the courthouse and the market place, and the ministers of the crown are known as Fred, or Jim or Harry to the. prosperous merchants whose shops surround the square, just as

they have done since first there was a Charlottetown. The LieutenantGovernor drops into the post office for his mail and hails his fellow islanders bent on the same errand as himself. The island families still assume the responsibility of making all their visitors feel at home as they did when a journey to Charlottetown was the event of a lifetime in the dear days of long ago. They are intensely proud of their forefathers, these kindly, happy, prosperous island folks. That is something of the atmosphere you will find there. There is peace beyond measure, in its towns as well as in its countryside, there is a gentle beauty everywhere, for there are no great hills and no rocky shores. For grandeur you must go elsewhere. There are lovely red cliffs that crumble under the lashing seas into strange and fantastic shapes, there are smooth meadows that wander down to the very edge of the sea, there are brooding ancient willows planted by Acadian hands, there are miles of hedges on guard between the green fields. Numberless little harbours there are, in unexpected coves and inlets and sailing vessels gliding like giant moths about the coast.

There are gorgeous sunsets .that turn lovely Malpeque Bay to rose and gold, and shimmer softly over the red cliffs of the north shore. And, best of all, there is the healing tranquility of this gentle land and its kindlv people.