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Published: August 29th 2015
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Today we headed to the west part of the island which is largely Acadian. The accents here are French, as are the signs. On the way there, you pass crop land intersected by streams and hardwood forests. As you head west, the land becomes flat and the trees stubby.
PEI grows 25% of Canada's potatoes. There are fields of potatoes everywhere your eye happens to fall. Have I told you that Tim loves potatoes? He considers them to be young French fries in waiting. We drove through Summerside and stopped at a little local restaurant called Sharkys where we got a table with a window so that we could watch the fisherman unloading their catch on the dock. Tim ordered fries with the works, a staple in PEI. The fries come with fried ground beef, green peas, fried onions and dark beef gravy. Apparently they were started by a feller that usually ordered a hamburger and fries. One day he told the waitress to have the hamburger broken up, add peas and onions and drown it all with with gravy and the rest is history.
We stopped at Our Lady of Mont Carmel Church, one of the Island's oldest.
Constructed of Island brick, it has the architecture and craftsmanship characteristic of so many structures of its era. An older man sitting outside the front entrance chatted a bit with us and told us to go on inside. A young man tailed us as we looked around, supposedly so that we wouldn't steal anything. As I prepared to take a photo of the elaborate confessional booth, the camera refused to work. My Catholic guilt set in. I could feel God's mighty finger pointing down at me and his deep voice admonishing me, "Thou who dost not attend confession is not worthy to take photos of the booth". I left in a hurry, checking behind me for fire and brimstone.
We made our way home and changed before we headed to Charlottetown. We had a bite to eat on a restaurant patio and then headed across the street to Confederation Theatre where we settled ourselves into our seats to watch "Anne", the live musical theatre production of Anne of Green Gables. The audience consisted of little girls in pretty print dresses, ribbons and bows, Japanese tourists who are known to be among Anne's biggest fans, families, locals and tourists. The
production was outstanding with beautiful costumes, athletic and rousing dancing and great performances by the actors who are all Canadian. As always, I cried when Matthew died. It gets me every time.
Karyn, our Couchsurfing host, is quite a character. At 64, she is loquacious, animated, smart, generous to a fault and a hell of a hard worker. She has a philosophy - "I don't live moment to moment, I live blessing to blessing". She hosts constantly, wants nothing and gives all. Karyn is the wardrobe mistress for the theatre. She makes, maintains and repairs the costumes, often on the fly, and dresses and changes the actors during the play, usually in a hurried frenzy. She took us backstage to see what goes on behind the scenes. We were led through a labyrinth of rooms full of props, lights, sound equipment, wigs and costumes. Dressing rooms now stood empty, still echoing the chatter of excited voices. Looking at everything that has to come together to make a wildly successful production like this, it's a miracle it happens at all.
Ask a Prince Edward Islander about their Island or their heritage and they will burst with pride. You will
see it in their shining eyes and their animated voices. We experienced this when we attended the "Gold Cup and Saucer" harness racing event with Karyn and her friends and family after the play. Since the early 1960s, the Gold Cup and Saucer has been considered one of the most celebrated harness racing events in Eastern Canada. Islanders love this event and there were tens of thousands of them there, crammed into the venue.
There are races throughout the night but we didn't get there until 11:30 pm, so we only saw one race before the big event, which is the final race. If the crowd was excited before, they were in a frenzy now. The Island Hymn is played and the crowds focus their attention on the horses and drivers approaching the field. Both horse and driver are introduced to the packed crowd, then make their way to the grandstand. Girls representing each horse are then brought out one by one, sitting atop convertibles and dressed in their horse's colours and silks. At exactly two minutes to midnight, the call to the post is heard, and horse and driver get ready to compete.
And that's when it
started to rain. There had been a light drizzle up until then but now a torrential deluge was upon us. We had a few umbrellas which kept us dry for a while but after 20 minutes, we were soaked. My long jersey skirt was so heavy, I had trouble keeping it on. Still, the crowd was chatty and cheerful, waiting for the rain to stop. The drains were plugged and we laughed and joked as the water crept up to our ankles and a parade of empty beer cans floated merrily by. Still the crowd persevered, waiting for their beloved race. Finally, after 45 minutes, the announcement came. "Ladies and gentlemen, due to the dangerous condition of the track, the Cup and Saucer race has been cancelled for tonight." A giant moan of disappointment arose from the crowd. Their race was not going to happen, only the second time in over 40 years. We trudged out, bedraggled and wet and made our way home.
It was almost 2 am when we finally hit the sack. It had been a full day. As the thunder boomed overhead and the downpour continued, we were thankful for the wonderful time we'd had
in PEI.
Tomorrow - Newfoundland!
(Scroll to bottom of page for more photos.)
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