Western Prince County, PEI

More photos than anything in this post because we were touring around.

The Halifax Griffiths have a beach house in Ebbsfleet and you can’t go much further “up west” than Ebbsfleet. 

It is a big house and set up as a summer rental so we booked it for three days of bonding with the senior Griffith siblings (Jim, Pat, Peter) and spouses (me, Ed, Betty).  We think it is the only time the 6 of us have spent time together other than big family events like weddings and funerals and I am happy to say we had a good time. 

We poked in and around western Prince, up to North Cape on a cool and windy day, and into various harbours and towns. There is not much left of what used to be Elephant Rock, water and wind have a strong impact on the sandstone.

Elephant Rock then

and now

North Cape is the longest rock reef in North America

The map was not quite aligned with the road configuration, an intersection on the map was actually a curve in the road, but that resulted in an interesting stop at this large church in Palmer Road (a very small community) which we would have missed.

Fishing is a big industry in PEI: lobster, tuna, mackerel, crab, mussels, oysters and, as one fisher told us, anything that’s out there. The western fishing harbours as well as some “down east” are called “ponds” Skinners Pond, Seacow Pond, Nail Pond, Miminegash Pond, etc. Essentially they are coastal lagoons protected by sand dunes, and they have “runs” out to the sea. The runs have been dredged time and time again and are often lined with steel, usually very rusty steel, or wood. We saw a couple of man made ponds, notably the one at West Point and it also had a long storage shed with fun doors that identify the contents by the boats’ names.

Sea Cow Pond

Tignish Run

Why worry about colour matching?

West Point Light House, now an inn.

 

Speaking of Skinners Pond, Islanders have made hay over the connection to Stompin' Tom Connors who was fostered to a family in Skinners Pond for four years. We went to the STC for a dinner theatre and it was really a lot of fun. We thought it was sold out but dropped in to the Centre to check about an afternoon entertainment and discovered they always hold seats for drop-ins even if the website says no tickets are available. Here’s the question: why would you drop in if the website says Sold Out?

Stompin' Tom impersonator.