On the wide, open roads, passing storybook landscapes and seaside villages, Canada’s Prince Edward Island is spectacularly scenic, carpeted in miles of green pastoral hills.
Heading north from Charlottetown to Green Gables Shore, picturesque lighthouses overlook quiet coves and the island’s iconic red sandstone cliffs. The endless countryside is utterly immaculate, as though each strand of grass has been meticulously tweezered by hand. On the drive across the French River to Cavendish, a popular viewing point, we pass standalone houses with sprawling porches, and clusters of wilting trees that were ravaged during Hurricane Fiona in 2022.
In Canada, a country that’s packed with national parks and culture-rich cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, this rural island has managed to remain off the beaten track. It’s easy to get to if you’re already in Canada – just a two-hour flight from Toronto and a bit less from Montreal – but for us UK folk, it’s a bit more of a schlep. Why would we exchange the many beautiful islands already on our doorstep – Sardinia, the Greek islands, Cyprus and many others – to fly long haul?
Yet, thousands of in-the-know tourists descend on the island every summer, predominantly from the USA, Canada, Japan and the UK. They flock to its sandy shores and cute seaside villages in search of seafood so fresh there’s an annual Shellfish Festival every September dedicated to the pleasure of eating.
Geographically, it makes sense – Prince Edward Island is one of three provinces in the Maritimes, located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where the ocean is stocked with lobsters, oysters and mussels. On land, potatoes and berries thrive from the fecund red soil, a factor that plays into the growing population of Amish communities.
Home to Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel, Anne of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, better known as PEI, is also widely known for its literary heritage. Published in 1908, Montgomery’s novel delves into the adventures of a garrulous red-haired orphan, Anne Shirley, who is sent to Green Gables, a remote farmstead on PEI. Even now, the novel continues to draw herds of tourists to the island in search of Montgomery’s former home in Cavendish, where the book is set, as well as the house that inspired Green Gables.
For those who grew up reading the novel, Prince Edward Island holds strong emotional ties. Some tourists have even gone so far as to get married at The Anne of Green Gables Museum, now a literary landmark maintained by the Campbell family who still live and keep the house alive. The landscape is every bit as magical and idyllic as the one we read about in the novel, replete with apple-blossom trees and fairy-tale forest paths; the house is a real time capsule, with black-and-white photographs that adorn the walls, alongside scrapbooks, framed letters and the same organ played on Montgomery’s wedding day. Upstairs, there’s a window that overlooks the very same lake that Montgomery references in the book, renamed ‘The Lake of Shining Waters’ by an incredulous Anne who falls in love with the lusciously rural landscape.
Each Anne site pieces together parts of the landscape that inspired the author’s fictional world. Even the dewy woodland trails she walked are accessible at Green Gables Heritage Place, an original source of inspiration for the author when visiting her cousins, the Macneills. Today, the Heritage farmstead has been remodelled to replicate the novel’s fictional nineteenth-century home. It’s a much larger operation than The Anne of Green Gables Museum, with a separate gallery area dedicated to Montgomery’s backstory.
On arrival, a long queue has formed outside the adjacent farmhouse, so we decide to follow one of the author’s favourite walking trails for shade. As the poplar trees rustle, the smell of mint faintly lingers in the air, conjuring passages from the book of Anne and Diana walking side by side in the spring sunshine.
phlox flowers growing on the banks of New London Bay, Stanley Bridge, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Between 1876 and 1911, Montgomery lived with her grandparents on a farmstead with a local post office. Only the foundation of the house remains, protected by a fence, but you can still wander the grounds where Montgomery once took inspiration for her poems and florid prose – always with a focus on the beauty of nature and the island. There’s a gift shop now where the old town post office used to be. This is where young Maud would help out from time to time, soaking up the local village stories. Eventually, she was able to start posting manuscripts to publishing houses in secret, mainly to avoid being the subject of gossip. Following a string of rejections, the novel was finally published in 1908 by a publisher in Boston – becoming an instant bestseller.
North Rustico beach is a short drive from Cavendish, covered in miles of rust-red sand. The 4.8 kilometre trail to Greenwich beach follows a flat path through the sweeping meadows of the National Park, an area that’s closely connected with Mi’kmaq and Acadian culture. It became a protected area in 1998 for its fragile parabolic dunes.
An atmospheric layer of fog envelopes the lake on the way to the beach, accessible along a floating boardwalk toward the sloping, U-shaped dunes. From above, the moody landscape is dispersed by patches of blue sky – the fog rising to reveal a family of swimming ducks. PEI boasts 50 kilometers of designated walking paths, all relatively flat through small towns and communities. Serious walkers are often drawn to the Confederation Trail, a former line rail that runs tip-to-tip across the island. Dubbed “Canada’s Camino”, the route is peppered with dirt trails, forests and spectacular coastal pathways that lead to cosy 1870s-era inns.
PEI also has its fair share of cute seaside villages. Victoria-by-the-Sea is located 35 kilometres southwest of Charlottetown, a fishing village that was once an important seaport in the late 1800s. Since then, it has been revitalised by a community of artists, potters, weavers and talented chocolatiers, not to mention a thriving seafood and restaurant scene. We stop by Island Chocolates to sample lime truffles and flower-infused bonbons while the owner, Eric Gilbert, talks us through his many trips to Ecuador and his experimental chocolate-making process, at times mixed with berries and beer. Locals are in and out all morning, sipping cups of velvety hot chocolate. It’s village life but with a buzz, a charming scene that belongs in a children’s storybook. The lobster rolls here are another reason you should come to Victoria, served cold in a warm butter bread roll with a side of potato salad at the Lobster Barn.
One afternoon, we pay a visit to Mysa Nordic Spa, an al fresco retreat in the middle of the countryside with saunas and invigorating cold plunges. We’re encouraged to follow the restorative rituals in order, from hot to cold with plenty of rest in between. Silent areas are marked clearly and taken seriously by the other guests. They float from one sauna to the next in their white robes, succumbing to the invigorating blasts of icy water with admirable prowess. Others sit by the firepit to read, or with their eyes closed in meditation. I take a seat that overlooks St. Peters Bay’s flat pastoral pastures to rest and find some semblance of stillness, before the ritual begins once again.
On the drive into Charlottetown, the air is fresh, slightly salty. The smooth, flat pastures soon transition into the downtown streets of the island’s provincial capital, home to Victorian-era homes and low-rise heritage buildings. In some ways it’s the anti-city. You can walk everywhere so there’s no need for a metro system; the tree-lined streets and walkways along the harbour are squeaky clean – and then there’s the fact that everyone is so warm and welcoming. People say ‘hello’ and smile at you, which is generally unheard-of in bigger cities. After attending the musical theatre showing of Anne of Green Gables one night, the optimism became even more infectious; even if you’re not a fan of musical theatre, there’s every chance you will begin to enunciate your “thank yous” and beam back at strangers. That’s just the spirit of PEI – a small island packed with personality.
The Holman Grand Hotel is perched opposite the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, which is home to a collection of Canadian visual arts. Nearby are jewellery boutiques, beer gardens and trendy rooftop patios such as Vicinato Ristorante. No Prince Edward Island adventure is complete without a trip to COWS, a local ice-cream parlour that has become a staple on every visitor’s PEI itinerary (the Wowie Cowie cone is a firm favourite). Stay at the Rodd hotel for its gut-busting pancake breakfasts, an elegant 1930s hotel that maintains its original vaulted ceilings.
But it’s remote, countryside dinners that come out on top. Cardigan Station is worth the 45-minute drive from Charlottetown, a former rail station and ticket office turned restaurant. Charmingly, certain features of the building have been kept intact, including the ticketer’s window. The decor feels more like a homely cottage, with intimate dining rooms, rickety red doors and a vast pub garden. The dishes here are rustic and unpretentious, ranging from crunchy kale chips matched with an earthy carrot hummus, best washed down with one of their recommended wines. The surrounding greenery is blissfully bucolic during golden hour. At this moment, it begins to make sense why PEI devotees have kept this slice of Canada all to themselves for so long. It’s too good to share.
All image credit: Tourism PEI
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