Prince Edward Island is Canada's smallest province — a crescent of red-soiled farmland in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connected to the mainland by the Confederation Bridge since 1997. It is flat, gentle, and unusually green in summer, with long sandy beaches along both coasts and a pace of life that most of Canada has long since abandoned. Potatoes and lobster are the two pillars of the economy; the province grows more potatoes per square kilometre than anywhere else in Canada, and the lobster fishing season is one of the most intensive on the Atlantic coast.
The island is inseparable from Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery's 1908 novel about a red-haired orphan on a Prince Edward Island farm. The book made the island famous internationally and has drawn visitors from Japan and Europe ever since. Green Gables House in PEI National Park is the place that inspired the setting, and the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown has staged a musical adaptation of the story every summer since 1965. The literary tourism can feel overwhelming in some spots, but the island exists apart from it.
Charlottetown is the provincial capital and the most practical base — walkable, with good restaurants and the heritage streetscape of Confederation. Souris at the island's eastern tip is the departure point for the ferry to the Magdalen Islands. Naufrage is the quieter east coast. PEI National Park, running along the north coast, has the island's best beach swimming.
North America > Canada > Prince Edward Island
