Unlike Rhode Island (RI), PEI is actually an island. It's climate, culture and setting is much more like Vermont (VT) than RI. It is largely pastoral. If you plopped VT into the North Atlantic somewhere and flattened it a bit, it would be an awful lot like PEI. PEI's largest city, Charlottetown, is about the size of VT's Burlington. Up until 1997, you had to take a ferry to the island. In May of that year the Confederation Bridge was built. It is 8 miles long and charges a fee of $44.50 (Canadian) per car when you leave the island. I was disappointed to find out that it is not the longest bridge in the world, not even close. It isn't even the longest in North America, but it is (according to Wikipedia) the longest bridge over ice in the world.
The most interesting things about PEI that I have noticed so far is the reddish copper colored beaches of the south side of the island. The sediments that formed the rocks contained a large amount of iron. This iron over the years has oxidized, forming rust which makes it's sedimentary rocks red. This is a picture I took at East Point, a spot where you can see Cape Breton in far away Nova Scotia in the distance:
When you walk on the beach, you come home with your foot red like it has been rusting.
1 comment:
I remember a family vacation to PEI when I was a kid. We got there via ferry. I still remember those cliffs.
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