Holidays in Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island Holiday

Sample Gulf of Saint Lawrence oysters, look over the coast from 19th-century lighthouses and see the spot where Canada was born. Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest and least populated province, but it is also one of the country’s most famous and recognizable locales. The small island was popularized in the well-known 1908 children’s novel Anne of Green Gables. Today hundreds of thousands of tourists come to see its Victorian-era fishing villages, 19th-century lighthouses and windswept coastline.

In addition to being the capital of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown is considered Canada’s birthplace, because the Canadian Confederation was planned here in 1864. The Government House, where the island’s lieutenant governor lives, stands near Victoria Park. After you’ve explored historic Charlottetown, get a taste of daily life in the redbrick shopping and restaurant district of Victoria Row or at the city’s biweekly Farmers Market on seasonal Wednesdays and year-round Saturdays.

Visit Cavendish on the island’s north shore. This popular locale was the setting for Anne of Green Gables. The book’s author, L.M. Montgomery, lived here close to the Green Gables House, which inspired the story’s setting. Drive 30 minutes east to nearby Prince Edward Island National Park. Stretching across a thin peninsula in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, this park features rare sand dunes and some of the island’s best beachfront.

Browse the island’s many small, historic fishing villages, sampling local oysters and lobsters caught fresh daily. Bike or walk along parts of the Confederation Trail, which spans the island from Tignish to Elmira and passes through many small towns and scenic landscape. Look for antique lighthouses with round, square and octagonal shapes. The island’s oldest lighthouse at Point Prim on the south shore was built in 1846.

Fly into Charlottetown’s airport from one of many large Canadian cities. Otherwise, drive from the Canadian mainland along the Confederation Bridge, spanning the 8-mile (13-kilometre) channel, which is covered with ice for part of the year. Arrive in late June to see the island covered in blooming wildflowers.