Trip 45 — Prince Edward Island Walk

Day 9: Tignish to Alberton
Wednesday, 6 August 2025

Today: 30834 steps/22.55 km/14.01 mi/4h 5m
Total: 419751 steps/293.41 km/182.32 mi/56h 1m

It was quiet and dark in Tignish yesterday evening: An osprey struck a utility line in Summerside, knocking out electricity to the western half of the island. After two hours, the power came back on, and I could find my supermarket chicken and salad and watch programs on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network: first a new sitcom called "North of North," set in the northern province of Nunavut, and finally a documentary about Darcy Turning Robe, a member of the Blackfoot First Nation who brought himself out of an eight-year rut of alcohol abuse to become an accomplished singer-songwriter and traditional drummer.

When I reached Route 12 this morning, the mosquitoes found me instantly. Crossing a river and two reedy ponds, I couldn't have put myself more in their territory. The spray was helping somewhat, but they persisted. I could have used a beekeeper's outfit. After an hour, if you knew braille, you could have read the first six chapters of Leviticus on the back of my legs.

After my recent slow days, I wondered whether I'd ever see a ten-minute kilometer again. But yesterday's rest helped, today's short segment encouraged me to press onward, and the mosquitoes kept me scurrying. I'm grateful to have had such good weather: another day of sunshine and a light breeze. My fourth kilometer was two seconds shy of ten minutes, and I didn't break 11 minutes until my tenth.

After that first hour, the mosquitoes were full of the all-you-can-eat buffet that was my body, and they left me alone except for occasional top-off helpings. Route 12 stayed along the coast, passing the usual string of wide lawns, potato farms, and well-appointed houses, plus a couple of campgrounds and parks. The crossing over the Kildare River was substantial, about half a kilometer, after which the road swung around and entered Alberton.

I plunked myself down at the Albert & Crown Pub, in the center of town, five minutes before I would reach my lodging. It wasn't even 1:30 yet and already I was practically done with the day's walk. There was only one server working the entire restaurant and bar, but she did it with grace and aplomb, and even with some lengthy waits for tables and food, customers stayed upbeat. I had an enormous beet salad followed by a puny chicken-parmigiana sandwich and then checked out the town.

Everything was on Main Street or Church Street, and their intersection so firmly establishes the center of town that the place used to be called The Cross (or Stumptown, because the timber industry had reduced the pines to stumps) before it was renamed in 1862 after Albert, Prince of Wales (King Edward VII). On one side of Main were the post office, the pub, a bargain clothing store, and a dollar store.

On the other were a bakery, a Philippine bubble-tea shop (there's been a wave of Philippine immigration lately — seafood-industry workers who become permanent residents), a Chinese restaurant, a pharmacy, and a pathway to the supermarket. Along Church were a church (imagine that), a gas station, a liquor store, a spur terminus of the Confederation Trail, the town museum, and the B&B where I was staying.

The building housing the four-room B&B was built in 1892. I'm tonight's only guest, but that doesn't bother Hubert and Michele, the Alsatian owners.

"We don't want to work too hard," Hubert said.

He showed me upstairs to the Provence Room and to the lounge and breakfast area. Outside my room was a grandfather clock. "I have to wind it," he said. "But I'll turn it off later, so you can sleep."

"Please don't," I said. "I like the sound. I have three clocks that chime at home."

There was a small library, which included a copy of David Weale's "It's an Island Thing: Quips and Witticisms" from PEI. What better way to understand the island?

"At first I thought Islanders were really friendly, waving so often, until I realized they were just swatting mosquitoes." Well, then I'll consider myself fully assimilated.

"When he was asked if he had lived on the Island all his life, he replied, 'Nope, not yet.'" Something my mother would have said.

She also would have liked: "When I was eighteen and moved away from the Island it was the first time in my life I met anyone I hadn't met before."

"He went down to Bedeque for three weeks to work at the potato harvest, and when he came back home to Campbellton declared he was never going to leave the Island again." Even in Canada's smallest province, another town can seem a world away.

"Were you ever off the Island?" "No, but I slept once with a girl from Cape Breton."

I took a rest and went back out to see about dinner. Hubert was at the front desk. All four mismatched room keys still hung on the wall.

"Do I even need the key?" I asked.

"No," he said. "You are the only guest and we are the only ones here now. We close the front door at eleven. And you won't be out that late."

"No place to go dancing," I said.

Albertson didn't make it easy to get dinner at a normal time on a Wednesday. The pub, where I had had lunch, closed at seven. So did the bakery and cafe. The Chinese restaurant was open only from November to May. The Philippine place sold basic packaged meals in addition to drinks. And of course there was the supermarket.

I collected dinner from various places: a Philippine pork bun, rigatoni with meatballs and a Caesar salad from the supermarket, and peanut-butter cheesecake from the bakery. And I swung by the liquor store for a can of English red from Lone Oak, the brewery I had tried in Borden-Carleton.

The food looked out of place served in its plastic packaging on the vintage silver platter atop a log stool in the lounge of the B&B, but I didn't want to dirty more dishware than necessary. And maybe it's a good thing that I settled in early, since tomorrow is the last of the 60-kilometer days.

Still, I wish I could have dined out closer to sunset. That's something Alberton can work on for the future, and as David Weale's book accurately points out, "We all hate it when visitors criticize the Island, especially when they're right."

Go on to day 10