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The MARITIME PROVINCES - Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - are
Canada's three smallest provinces, and their
combined population of around
one-and-three-quarter million has been largely
confined to the coasts and river valleys by the
thin soils of their forested interiors. Even
today, the bulk of the region remains
intractable Canada's most scenic regions.
Of some appeal too are the chunks of fertile
land that punctuate the forests, principally in
the undulating fields of PEI (Prince Edward
Island) and the lowlands around New Brunswick's
Grand Falls, both of which produce massive crops
of potatoes, and in Nova Scotia's Annapolis
Valley, a major fruit-producing area.
Most visitors to the Maritimes come for the
coastal scenery and the slow pace of the "unspoilt"
fishing villages, but the Maritimes were not
always as sleepy as they appear today. When the
three provinces joined the Dominion in the
middle of the nineteenth century, their
economies were prospering from the export of
their fish and timber and the success of their
shipyards. In recent years, tourism has helped
to keep the region's economy afloat and the
tourist industry hereabouts is extremely
well-organized, though out of season - before
mid-May and after mid-October - many attractions
and B&Bs are closed |
Geography
Known as the "Garden Province", the island is
located in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, east of
New Brunswick and north of Nova Scotia from
which it is separated by the Northumberland
Strait.
The capital and largest city is Charlottetown,
situated centrally on the island's southern
shore. (See also a list of communities in Prince
Edward Island.) Summerside is the second largest
city and is located in Prince County, in the
western part of the province. Stratford and
Cornwall, the third and fourth largest
communities, are located immediately east and
west of Charlottetown respectively, placing more
than a third of the province's population within
the capital region. Like many other communities
on Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown and
Summerside are both built around natural
harbours.
In 1997, the Confederation Bridge was opened,
connecting the west end of the island to New
Brunswick. The bridge replaced a ferry service
operated by Marine Atlantic. A Northumberland
Ferries Limited ferry service operates from the
east end of Prince Edward Island providing
access to Nova Scotia while another ferry
service operates between Souris and the Magdalen
Islands.
The island's landscape has been influenced by
humans since the arrival of European explorers
in the 16th century. Today, although
approximately half of the landmass is covered by
forest, there is very little left of the
original forests that were present when
Europeans arrived on the island. Virtually the
entire province is dominated by agriculture,
resulting from the ease of farming in the
distinctive red sedimentary soil. The island's
pastoral landscape has had a strong bearing on
not only its economy but also its culture.
Author Lucy Maud Montgomery drew inspiration
from the land during the late Victorian Era for
the setting of her classic Anne of Green Gables.
Today, many of the same qualities that
Montgomery and others found in the Island are
enjoyed by millions of tourists who visit in all
seasons. They enjoy a variety of leisure
activities, including world-renowned beaches,
various golf courses, eco-tourism adventures,
and simply touring the countryside and enjoying
cultural events in local communities around the
island.
The coastline of the island consists of a
combination of long beaches, dunes, short
sandstone cliffs, salt water marshes and
numerous small bays and harbours. The beaches,
dunes and sandstone cliffs consist of
distinctive reddish sand, due to the high amount
of iron oxide in the rock. The geological
properties of the white silica sand found at
Basin Head are unique in the province as the
grains cause a humming noise as they rub against
each other when walked on. Large dune fields on
the north shore can be found on barrier islands
at the entrances to various bays and harbours.
The magnificent sand dunes at Greenwich are of
particular significance. The shifting, parabolic
dune system is home to a variety of birds and
rare plants and is also a site of significant
archaelogical interest.
Prince Edward Island was originally inhabited by
the Mi'kmaq people. They named the island
Abegweit, meaning Cradle on the Waves.
As a French colony comprising part of Acadia,
the island was called Île Saint-Jean. Roughly
one thousand Acadians on the island, many having
already fled a British-ordered expulsion in the
mainland British colony of Nova Scotia in 1755,
were subsequently deported in 1758 when the
British seized Île Saint-Jean during the Seven
Years' War.
The new British colony of "St. John's Island",
also known as the "Island of St. John", was
virtually empty following the cessation of
hostilities, save a British garrison. To attract
settlers without draining the British treasury,
"Captain Samuel Holland, of the Royal Engineers,
sent a proposal to the Lords Commissioners of
Trade and Plantation, proposing that a
scientific survey be done to encourage land
settlement and the fishery in British North
America, particularly in the areas recently
ceded by France."[1]
The survey was carried out between 1764-1766
whereby three roughly 500,000 acre (2,000 km²)
counties were created, each of which was further
subdivided into 100,000 acre (400 km²) parishes.
Each county received a county seat (called
"royalties"), and the remaining countryside was
divided into 67 townships (called "lots")
averaging 20,000 acres (80 km²) in area which
were promptly auctioned to British nobility.
The owners of the lots were expected to recruit
settlers and finance their transportation to the
island, whereby settlers were required to clear
a certain amount of forest for farmland and pay
annual "quitrents" to their landlords. Similar
feudal systems were used in other British and
European colonies, but few caused as much
controversy, given peasant farmer uprisings over
the following century against the actions of
absentee landlords.
In 1798, Great Britain changed the colony's name
from St. John's Island to Prince Edward Island
to distinguish it from similar names in the
Atlantic area, such as the cities of Saint John
and St. John's. The colony's new name honoured
the fourth son of King George III, Prince Edward
Augustus, the Duke of Kent (1767–1820), who was
then commanding British troops in Halifax.
Prince Edward was also the father of Queen
Victoria.
In September 1864, Prince Edward Island hosted
the Charlottetown Conference, which was the
first meeting in the process leading to the
Articles of Confederation and the creation of
Canada in 1867. Prince Edward Island did not
find the terms of union favourable and together
with Newfoundland, balked at joining in 1867. In
the late 1860s the colony examined various
options including the possibility of becoming an
independent dominion, as well as entertaining
delegations from the United States interested in
joining their political union.
In the early 1870s the colony began construction
of a railway, however with mounting construction
debts, and under pressure from Great Britain's
Colonial Office, negotiations with Canada were
reinstated. In 1873, Prime Minister Sir John A.
Macdonald, anxious to thwart American
expansionism and facing the distraction of the
Pacific Scandal, conceded to a request that the
federal government assume the colony's railway
debts, and also agreed to financing a buy-out of
the last of the colony's absentee landlords to
free the island of leasehold tenure. Another
equally important condition was for the federal
government to provide "efficient steamship
service" to the mainland. Prince Edward Island
entered Confederation with little fanfare on
July 1, 1873.
At the time of Confederation, Prince Edward
Island's Parliamentary representation consisted
of 6 seats in the House of Commons and 4 seats
in the Senate. Prince Edward Island's population
remained stable but western expansion in Canada
reduced its proportion of the nation's
population. As a result, representation declined
to 4 Members of Parliament by the 1910s. In 1915
Prince Edward Island's representation in the
House of Commons was about to fall from 4 to 3
when the provincial government argued that since
the province had 4 Senators, it could have no
less than an equal number of Members of
Parliament; Senators being appointed for life at
this time, it was very rare for these coveted
positions to be vacant for long. The provincial
government took the issue to court and won the
case, forcing the federal government to create a
law mandating that no province can have fewer
seats in the House of Commons than it has seats
in the Senate.
As a result of having hosted the inaugural
meeting of Confederation, the Charlottetown
Conference, Prince Edward Island presents itself
as the "Birthplace of Confederation" with
several buildings, a ferry vessel, and the
Confederation Bridge using the term
"confederation" in some way. The most prominent
building in the province with this name is the
Confederation Centre of the Arts, presented as a
gift to Prince Edward Islanders by the 10
provincial governments and the federal
government in 1964 upon the centenary of the
Charlottetown Conference where it stands in
Charlottetown as a national monument to the
"Fathers of Confederation."
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Background:
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A
land of vast distances and rich natural resources,
Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867
while retaining ties to the British crown.
Economically and technologically the nation has
developed in parallel with the US, its neighbor to
the south across an unfortified border. Its
paramount political problem continues to be the
relationship of the province of Quebec, with its
French-speaking residents and unique culture, to the
remainder of the country. |
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Population:
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32,507,874 (July 2004 est.) |
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Languages:
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English 59.3% (official), French 23.2% (official),
other 17.5% |
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Currency:
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Canadian dollar (CAD)
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Currency code:
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CAD
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Exchange rates:
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Canadian dollars per US dollar - 1.4 (2003), 1.57
(2002), 1.55 (2001), 1.49 (2000), 1.49 (1999) |
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