Richard and Donna Wightman of Alberton, PEI made us very welcome. We enjoyed their seafood dinner and rhubarb pie then Richard took us on a brief tour of their end of the island, including seeing Richards’ boat that he tries to sail most days.
There are potato fields in every direction on PEI.
We spent some time at the Acadian Museum on PEI learning about the history of these fishing and farming French pioneers who were caught in the middle of the British and French wars of the mid 1700’s. Despite their expulsion from their lands some returned and their French heritage lives on in communities in the Canadian provinces of PEI, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, Newfoundland and New Brunswick.
Our visit to PEI required a visit to the Lucy M. Montgomery home – made famous for her Anne of Green Gables series of books that all young girls between 1950 and 1970 in the English speaking world read avidly.
Anne’s house draws large crowds especially during the summertime. We were too early to see the hordes of her fans.
We fancied a lobster lunch so followed the jetty to this boat. However the boat only sold fresh lobsters caught by the fishermen that day.
They had a good supply of lobsters and were happy to do a deal but they weren’t cooked and we had no cooking facilities.
Whats more – the Lobster restaurant next door was under renovation and would open in a weeks time – so that wasn’t an option either.
So we settled for a McLobster instead which was suprisingly good! McDonalds can pander to local tastes and with the glut of lobsters in this part of Canada everyone from the fishermen to the patrons seem to be on winner!
We also enjoyed Lobster flavoured potato crisps- something not seen in Australia.
At Montague on PEI we stayed with Joe and Lila on their 39 acres of woodland. The brook on the land provides wild rainbow trout and we walked here in between courses at dinner. The black flies and mosquitos tried to have a meal off us so we made our walk a very short one.
Bella, their black dog barked at us as we arrived then just loved us to death after that, following us everywhere.
We enjoyed some local wine from.PEI but with the challenging climate they have a bit of a way to go to make an award winner!
These trees supply all the wood to heat the wood burning furnace used year round. As Joe said – his wood store was enormous and more useful than money in the bank!
Joe runs two independent but connected furnaces – one runs on wood and the other runs on oil. And only Joe knows what all the valves and plumbing are for!
Dinner was scallops – we were in seafood heaven!
All good times end and here we look back af PEI from the Wood Islands ferry with the old lighthouse still standing.
Photography is lovely with all the great captions!
MJ