Our next destination was Jacques Cartier PP, but we had several stops to make along our drive. We saw Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birthplace home, it’s privately run. Along the central coastal drive, we stopped at French River lookout to see the fishing harbour and the largest field of Lupin we had seen. We were lucky to get parking along the road to see the sandstone cliffs at Thunder Cove Beach as it was very full by the time we left. We took a quick look around Cabot Beach PP and the neighbouring fishing village. When we took a back road, we stopped to see Historic St. Mary’s Church built in 1902 and the inside roof was like a wooden ship. Then we took some red dirt roads to visit Belmont PP where we had lunch. Further along was Green Park PP where we visited the historic Yeo House built in the 1860’s. The Yeo family were wealthy shipbuilders and merchants, and the inside reflects their wealth with imported furnishings and formal architecture. The tour guide even let us climb the drop-down ladder to see the view from the top.
Next, we did another side excursion to the PEI Shellfish Museum and what an incredible learning experience for us! The museum is small but tells you all about fishing for Oysters, Mussels, Quahogs, Clams, Scallops, and Lobsters. The Museum is attached to a research centre that studies ways to eradicate diseases that the shellfish get and how to improve production. As it turned out the person working there was an actual Oyster fisherman as his primary job and just helped look after the museum as a sideline. He explained the entire process of seeding the oyster larvae until they were large enough to be thrashed and then placing them in mesh bags to grow larger or releasing them in the sea. When he fishes, he goes out for 12 hour days with 2 long rakes that they use almost like chopsticks to pick up the oysters from the sea bottom. He must measure them and look for the grade of the oyster (Fancy, Choice, Standard, Commercial) and fill his 4 large bins in the boat before returning to sell them. The rest of the museum focused on each of the other types of shellfish. Since we’ve been eating shellfish on the entire trip we absolutely loved learned all about the industry. Here’s a couple of the key display boards they had in the museum but if you have any questions just place them in the comments section of the blog.
That evening we had another perfect campsite right on the water in Jacques Cartier PP. The parks name was chosen to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Jacques arriving on PEI in 1534. We walked the beach and found more sea glass and then another LTV came in 2 sites over and I helped her with some setup things since she was a new owner. We got up early to hopefully see a sunrise out of the water but there were some clouds on the horizon, so it wasn’t the best.
The next day we were driving up to the North Cape and then down the western shore of PEI to Cedar Dunes PP. It was a cold blustery morning, and our first stop was the fishing Village of Tignish to see the Tignish Run lighthouse (27’ tall built in 1880). We were hoping the fisheries Co-op would be open but because it was Sunday they weren’t open when we got there. Next, we saw Seacow Pond Harbour before heading to North Cape.
North Cape is the northwestern most tip of PEI and it’s where the Northumberland Strait waters meet the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We picked a perfect day to visit it because the waves were crashing over the reef (it sticks out 2 kms off the cape and is the longest natural reef in North America) making for a spectacular sight. We first checked out the waters and the lighthouse (built in 1865) and then went into the Wind Energy Interpretative centre. Since the cape often gets strong winds, they use it as a Wind Energy research centre as well as a practical testing ground for various wind turbines. After the interpretative centre we looked around the outside exhibits and then were surprised to see how the tide lowering started to show us the actual reef and we even took the opportunity to walk out aways along it. What an incredible place to visit and especially if you stay long enough to see the changing conditions.
Once we left North Cape, we started heading down the western shore of PEI. We stopped in the town of Tignish for some groceries and to see St. Simon and St. Jude Church built with over 500,000 local red sandstone bricks and it’s the largest church on PEI. There was also a display explaining the history of the Irish moving to PEI starting in 1811 pre the Irish Famine. In the 1830’s more Irish would arrive in Charlottetown and make the trek to the Tignish area. As we continued along the coast we stopped in Skinners Pond to look at the dunes and the waves crashing ashore. The Stompin’ Tom Centre was there but we didn’t make a stop to see it. Next was another harbour and fish processing plant called Howard Cove with a small lighthouse and a waterfall beside the pretty red cliffs.
That evening we were staying at Cedar Dunes PP so we could go and see the West Point Lighthouse. It is the tallest lighthouse in PEI at 67’8”, was the first of the square towers, and was built in 1875. It was a short walk along the beach from Cedar Dunes PP to the lighthouse and then we paid to go through the museum and up to the top of the lighthouse for the view. The lighthouse is connected to a small hotel at the base, and they used to have a restaurant there but it’s no longer open so that evening we took the short walk over to the West Point harbour to have dinner at Lighthouse Willy’s Diner (Lobster dip, Cod, Scallops, and frozen dessert).
Our first stop the next day was the Canadian Potato Museum and it was good we got there early to get parking as it was extremely busy by the time we left after lunch. The museum went through the steps to plough the fields, plant the tubers, and harvest the potatoes. It talked about the history of the potato back to the 1700’s, and the various diseases that have impacted potatoes over the years. We also learned why potatoes are a very healthy food and how many different varieties there are. They had an attached large building with all sorts of historical farm machinery, many of which had been invented in PEI to improve the potato farming steps. Once we finished the potato museum section, we visited the small local community history section and then decided to have a potato lunch in the restaurant with Chili fries and a loaded baked potato.
We followed the roads along the southern coastline as much as we could and stopped at Union Corner PP to walk along the beach and there were some cool red sandstone pillars. Our destination for our last night in PEI was Linkletter PP and we had a perfect site right on the waterfront.
The next day we were taking the bridge to leave PEI but before doing that we decided to do a bit of back tracking to see a couple of other parks. Bonshaw Hills had MTB trails, so we went to check them out. We did some medium difficulty single track trails, but it turned out we likely should have gone to one of the other park entrances since there weren’t that many kilometers of trails where we had parked. Next, we stopped at Argyle Shore PP to walk along the beach and hunt for sea glass, and we drove through the popular town of Victoria-by-the-Sea where there were lots of people on the beach and visiting the cafes. When we arrived at the bridge welcome area, we decided to get Ice Cream from the famous Cows PEI Ice Cream since it was so highly rated. Certainly, the flavours were good and interesting, but this was the first time we ever saw a place weigh the ice cream cone! Sharon would give the cone a higher rating than I would.
Unfortunately, when exited to cross the bridge the transport trucks were all backed up for the weigh scales and we had to sit in traffic for 50 minutes to move about 200m down the road to get to the pay station to cross the bridge to go back to New Brunswick.
Overall, we absolutely loved our 12-day stay in PEI seeing many of the provincial parks and a very large portion of the coastline and the lighthouses and had some fantastic seafood meals. Our next and last blog for this trip will cover our return through New Brunswick and Quebec back to Ontario.