48 Hours
Prince Edward Island’s rising east
It’s been less than a week since Hurricane Dorian tore through Atlantic Canada, knocking out power to 18,000 homes and businesses in p.e.i. alone and causing an estimated $17.5 million worth of damages in the province. While crews work overtime to restore power and clean up roads, a small and intrepid group of workers is tackling a very i mportant project: clearing the Confederation Trail, the network of multi-use trails that criss-crosses the island province.
By the time I land in Charlottetown, four days after Dorian’s September winds and rains, 65 per cent of the Trail is already cleared. Ruth Delong, trails community relations co-ordinator for the province, is ping-ponging between crew updates and calls from uneasy travellers – including several groups starting tip-to-tip trips – who are wondering if they should cancel. “Come!” she says.
“Thousands of trees came down across the Trail,” Delong says. “But an awful lot of people use it at this time of year, so we knew we had to mobilize quickly. Most people want to do the tip-to-tip, so we had three crews with chippers who started punching a hole through the main trails almost right away.”
That rapid response is a testament to the Trail’s growth from a little-known gem to a major tourist destination that draws thousands of users each year, most of them cyclists. In 1994, the Prince Edward Island Railway corridor began its transformation into the Confederation Trail, which now stretches 449 km from Tignish in the west to Elmira in the east, with branch arms spreading out across the province. (The 2019 addition is a segment from Mount Stewart to Lake Verde.) A 2012 impact assessment valued the economic benefit of Trail tourism in the millions, and that number is growing.
“There aren’t very many places with a trail like this,” Delong says. “The surface is so good. There’s a consistency that you can depend on, and that draws a lot of people. People think they’re coming for two or three days, but then they stay for longer. Once they get a taste of it, they don’t want to leave.”
I’m one of those people. I’m making my eagerly awaited return to p.e.i. to explore the eastern part of the Trail and some of the area’s resurging small towns. A few years ago, I was surprised by how much I loved my first visit to the island, a week of on-trail and on-road riding. I’d expected a relaxing-but-not-all-that-memorable trip. What I found were great unexpected riding challenges, richness and beauty beyond
what I could’ve imagined, a sense of true freedom and calm, as well as an impressive level of infrastructure investment. I’m jazzed to be back and ready to cram as much p.e.i. down my craw as I can in three short days.
On the first day, Delong and I roll out from Murray River on the quiet PE-17 under a soft sun toward Panmure Island. We cruise along the causeway and pause to conjure the ghost of the Titanic way out there in the Atlantic issuing its distress call on the night of April 14, 1912, which was received metres away at the Cape Bear Lighthouse and Marconi Station. We continue to the tip of Panmure, where the Mi’kmaq once dug for quahogs and clams, to the oldest wooden lighthouse on the island and the Haflinger horses that graze in its shadow.
After sun, snacks and a chat with an Alberta couple who are riding around the East Coast before heading to South Korea’s Four Rivers Trail, we get back on PE-17 heading north toward charming Montague. The road is narrow and shoulder-less, but cars are occasional and considerate enough to give us the impression we have the road mostly to ourselves. The rising cost of housing in Charlottetown has pushed some out of the city, and is in part responsible for new life in smaller communities, such as Montague. In that town, the craft beer tidal wave has given rise to Copper Bottom and Bogside breweries. After scarfing a bacon cheeseburger hand pie and a pleasantly hoppy apa on the bank of the Montague River, we get onto the Confederation Trail for the last quiet leg to Georgetown.
“The best way to explore p.e.i. is to build a trip that combines road, trail and backcountry heritage roads,” says Dayan Gonzalez Nuñez, a mechanic at Macqueen’s bike shop in Charlottetown and the shop’s tour organizer. “I usually advise people to come to the island with 32c tires. That way you can fully experience what the province has to offer.”
When I was here a few years ago, I loved riding a loop on the island’s northeast tip, which takes you along the sea to Basin Head Provincial Park and the East Point Lighthouse, and a stretch between Murray Harbour and Belfast in the southeast, which you can do half on-road and half on-trail. One of Gonzalez Nuñez’s favourite rides starts in Stratford, southeast of Charlottetown, and follows PE-21 northeast to Mount Stewart, then loops north along the water on the Gulf Shore Parkway. Then it’s down to Stanhope, and back to Stratford. “When you do that loop, you get a nice ride along the Hillsborough River. PE-25 from the north shore is a roller-coaster and is a good place to get some hills in. The ride gives you lots of water views, and you see lots of pretty waterfront communities.” His other favourite is a classic: the stretch of the Confederation Trail between St. Peters and Mount Stewart – my destination for Day 2.
After a life-changing cinnamon bun at the Maroon Pig in Georgetown and a stroll along the harbour – one of the deepest in North America – to watch fishermen haul in long, fat strings of farmed mussels, we head west on the Trail toward Cardigan. We have a quick stop at the buzzing Cardigan Farmers Market, and then go on to Mount Stewart on the most scenic part of the Trail. Critics of rail trails lament the lack of vistas, but that’s not a problem here. The Trail opens up to show-stopping views, turning into a boardwalk that carries you over the mouth of the Morell River. Then you follow the Trail as it winds into the town of St. Peters along the harbour, where the buoys mark mussel strings
“People think they’re coming for two or three days, but then they stay for longer. Once they get a taste of it, they don’t want to leave.”
below. St. Peters Bay, formerly Havre-saint-pierre, was one of the first and most important French settlements on p.e.i., a commercial cod-fishing centre that began developing in the 1720s. When the British took over the island in the late 1750s, most of the Acadian residents of St. Peters Bay were deported back to France – many died en route.
In St. Peters, we waste no time getting to Rick’s Fish and Chips for some you-guessed-it, and pop into a few local shops before continuing on to Greenwich National Park. The road out to the park is wide, smooth and empty. We zip along, mesmerized by views of the water and the farms on the opposite shore, thinking that it doesn’t get much better than this. And then it does. After pedalling around the park trails, we dismount and explore the winding boardwalks that bring you right into the midst of the parabolic sand dunes.
Day 3 and Delong is right: I don’t want to leave. There’s still so much good riding within reach. Today, I’m on my own. I take the Trail from St. Peters Bay to the eastern terminus in Elmira, where some of the tip-to-tipers Delong had convinced to come are taking a celebratory photo under the Trail sign. Then it is on to PE-16 for 20 km along the ocean to busy Souris, another Acadian settlement named for the mice plagues that once tore through farmers’ fields. It’s tough to adjust to serious headwinds after so many pleasant sheltered kilometres on the Trail, so the reward is a celebratory scoop of pumpkin-spice ice cream from Cherry on Top Creamery and a stroll along the busy boardwalk. And that’s a wrap. Or maybe I can stay an extra day.