news&views Autumn 2020 | Page 44

View from the East Robin Carson | Article & Photos I didn’t discover the Maritimes until I was 65. Having lived in Edmonton since I was three, I really didn’t know much about the rest of Canada. Holidays mostly consisted of excursions west, never east. I knew Jasper, Banff, and Waterton and could find my way around Victoria and the rest of Vancouver Island, but I had never in my life been farther east than Toronto. The year I began to draw my pensions, my wife and I decided to explore the Maritimes before we got much older. So, maps in hand, we blindly plotted an itinerary, booked bed and breakfasts, bought plane tickets to Halifax, rented a car, and off we went. We took a tourist-approved loop from Halifax through Wolfville then west to Digby (with its worldfamous scallops) and then via ferry to Saint John, New Brunswick. From there, we visited Hopewell Rocks (with the world’s highest tides) then crossed the amazing Confederation Bridge to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The trip was a success in several ways. We fulfilled our ambition of being slack-jawed, camera-toting tourists in our own country, and we found a city that was absolutely comfortable for us: Charlottetown. Prince Edward Island is very small. While it is not small enough to drive around in an afternoon (like some of our Western visitors have thought), the island is only a fifth the size of Vancouver Island. The total population is just over 150,000, not much bigger than Red Deer. Charlottetown itself has only about 36,000 people. The PEI legislature, with only twenty-seven members, is smaller than ARTA’s Board of Directors. Charlottetown has a small-town feel to it. People look at you, not at the sidewalk or their phones. In restaurants, servers happily strike up conversations, answer questions, and even sit down and chat. Though Charlottetown is small, because of the tremendous influx of tourists in summer months (well over 1.5 million in 2019), it has most of the amenities of a much larger city. Where Charlottetown really shines, though, is in its arts community. With both the University of Prince Edward Island and Holland College, there are plenty of young musicians and actors. Victoria Row, a street closed to vehicles in summer, has several restaurants with outdoor seating — and a small stage where live jazz plays all day. Many pubs feature good jazz and excellent blues. Two different stage productions feature Anne of Green Gables, and there is also a private theatre with diverse presentations and The Guild, a small arts centre featuring art displays, music, and drama. Confederation Centre of the Arts houses the city 44 | arta.net