This place is about potatoes. 25% of Canada’s potato production comes from Prince Edward Island, and 60% of those spuds are headed to accompany your next burger, or get Frito-laid. As at least 86% of Canada’s potato export market is the US, there is an excellent chance we saw the very place where your next french fry was raised.
Everywhere you look, it’s taters. Think of it this way. If California used as much of its land for potatoes, an area the size of Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined would be pushing up spuds.
For our tour of PEI potato land, we ditched the truck and fifth wheel on the shores of New Brunswick and hitched a ride on the shuttle across the Confederation Bridge where we met our next guide/shuttle who drove us to the northwestern-most tip of PEI, the North Point Light Station. Yes, it’s a wee bit past Tignish. (Population 57, and home to our brother-in-law’s great aunt)
We had packed a clean shirt and a fresh set of dainties in our panniers, along with some lunch items, patch kits, tools and sufficient charging devices for our bikes, iPads, and phones. So loaded, we set off on our four day bike journey across the island.
We were lured by PEI’s travel website which described with acclaim the 470 km Confederation Trail system as a great way to see PEI. Following our guide’s advice, we didn’t plan to start the trail until the second day and chose to take a route along the coast for Day 1. A short day at 36 miles, we dined on the outdoor deck at the hotel after we had dipped in pool and dare-deviled the water slide. Such things were delightfully foreign.
Day 2 was fully immersive. We stopped for coffee and Timbits at Tim Horton’s (for those that don’t know, Tim Horton’s is perhaps more of a cultural icon in Canada than Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts combined is to US). Then on to the Potato Museum, where we decided the thrill of posing for pictures at the giant potato outside couldn’t be beaten by the exhibits of over 100 varieties of spuds first introduced to PEI in 1758 and then developed by the land-clearing Scots who settled and spudded the island.
Finally, it was time to ride the epic Confederation Trail. After about 10 miles we discovered that the converted railway was probably the worst way to see the island. It was built for trains, not touring cyclists. Trains like slow, straight grades, excruciatingly wide radius turns, and they don’t care about views or scenery. Back in 1872, PEI, then only a colony, had just about broken their entire economy on this expansive narrow gauge railway and they only joined the Dominion government after getting the rest of Canada to assume their huge railway debt. Maybe just as they hoodwinked Canada, perhaps they continue to try to dupe unaware cyclists as to the desirability of seeing the province by looming only at long narrow and boring stretches of reforested trees.
After sheer boredom brought us to listening to podcasts while we pedaled, we emancipated ourselves from the Confederation that afternoon and got a taste of the local roads on the way to Miscouche, with its 873 people the 40th largest of PEIs 63 municipalities, and home to our next bed and breakfast. Do the math: PEI has 143,000 residents. It’s top ten municipalities have 77,000 residents. There are a lot of signs on PEI’s roads announcing your arrival to a town that you would otherwise could not recognize as anything other than two houses and maybe a church kind of close together.
As I was saying, the potato fields rolled on and on. One thing that was really cool was that on fallow years, the farmers planted mustard only to turn it back to the soil. Huge gentle hills covered in hues of green and yellow gave way to classic old farmhouses. This is actually the homeland portrayed in Anne of Green Gables, and the back roads and countryside let you know it, more so in their expanse and charm than all the tourist-attracting cottages could collectively muster. (I couldn’t help using that word)
Day 3 was wonderful. No rail trail. More hills, more coast, sand dunes at the PEI National Park, the village lobster fishers at Rustico, and a suspenseful adventure. As we rode on through the afternoon, we saw a plume of billowing black smoke rising a few miles in front of us. Soon, and for the next half hour, fire trucks and ambulances came screaming by as we pulled over. As we rode on, the smoke got bigger on the horizon. At a police barricade that blocked away cars, we asked if we could cycle on. “Yes, but as you get to the hotel with the fire, follow the local policeman’s instructions.” Hotel? After days of riding these rolling, barely populated pastures, we started to fear that our night’s lodging plans were about to be disrupted. Luckily, as we approached the fire scene we learned that someone had decided that a freshly mulched garden bed was a suitable place for their cigarette butt and laid waste to about 18 rooms and the pool complex at the hotel we decided not to stay in. Amazingly no one was hurt. As we had made our PEI plans, there were two lodging choices here, and we picked the charming alternative as it was PEI’s oldest and closer to the coast.
Our fourth day, just as our saddles were getting used to our 175 mile ride, we realized the journey was coming to an end. So we took a couple of detours to soak in the scenery and sample the Scottish pie at Anna’s Country Kitchen (just down the hill from the Crapaud Curling Club). Leaving the Victoria lighthouse behind, we rode the last few miles along the south coast, seeing the massive 8-mile Confederation Bridge beckoning in the distance. The world’s longest bridge over ice-covered water, it was a symbol of the end of our ride, a link to other world we had suspended for four glorious cycling days.
