I had spent a day driving around the western half of the North Cape Coastal Trail, today I was going to drive around the eastern half before heading to North Rustico to spend 2 nights on the north central coast of the island in a rotating house!
The rotating house was at the end of the day. The day began with a drive to Bideford. Scott, the West Point lighthouse manager recommended I go to Bideford to see the house where LM Montgomery lived for a year when she was a teacher in 1894. Scott had lived in the Dominican Republic and met a local called Shelly there and they had become the best of friends. Shelly had since moved to Canada and was in charge of the museum in Bideford. The wonderful Shelly gave me a personal tour of the house.
LM Montgomery lived in the house in 1894 and 1895 when the house was a parsonage, but originally the house had been built by a shipping merchant. The house had passed into private hands in the 20th century and been completely modernised. When the house came up for sale, again it was the community wanting to save their heritage, who bought the house to prevent it being sold and transported to Cavendish to be part of an Anne of Green Gables Avonlea style experience.
I was hugely impressed with the islanders and their commitment to preserving their local heritage. First the community at West Point had bought the lighthouse to preserve it and now I discovered the community of Bideford had bought the old parsonage to stop it becoming a building in a kind of theme park.
The Bideford community did have its work cut out when it purchased the property because it had been completely modernised. The community wanted to restore the parsonage as close as possible to the original house constructed by the shipping merchant, so they had to do some extensive research using photographs and documents.
They removed the upstairs bathroom and put it in the shed as there would have been no bathroom in the original house, but they had made one concession by putting in a toilet and wash basin in a downstairs room for museum staff. Whilst putting the bathroom in the shed, they found some old pickles in the shed. They had been placed on a shelf in the kitchen pantry as original. God knows what they tasted like. Pickling is obviously done to preserve food, but despite this process I would be surprised if the produce was still edible.
The stairs and bannister in the house had been replaced, the craftsmen had done a really good job replicating what they had seen in photographs and even the wallpaper was as close as possible to the original pattern and colour. They knew what the original wallpaper had been like as any new wallpaper had gone straight on top of the old wallpaper. When they were removing the old wallpaper, it was about 10 layers thick!
The tour took in the whole house, including the upstairs bedroom that would have been the one LM Montgomery stayed in and the rules for teachers was posted on the wall. They were very strict; you weren’t even allowed to enjoy an ice cream!
I was very close to Lennox Island, so I decided to make the detour there. Lennox Island has the only First Nations population on Prince Edward Island. It’s buzzing and there’s plenty going on in August around the time of the annual Pow Wow, in June it was extremely quiet. There wasn’t much there, a tiny cultural centre with a few exhibits and a craft shop.
I had expected Lennox Island to eat up a lot more of my time, as it was, it was still relatively early in the day and so I did what I’d said I wasn’t going to do and ended up driving the entire remainder of the North Cape Coastal circuit.
I was so pleased I did. It was well worth it. From West Point, down along the Acadian coast to Cap Egmont and on to Summerside was the most beautiful part of the Prince Edward Island coastline.
Lots of places were still closed up before the summer season got into full swing in a week or two, but I did go to Abram Village, an Acadian community with a few craft shops open. Ruby, my best friend in Canada, was going to become a grandmother in a few months and I’d known her daughter, Tysha, from when she was a baby. So I wanted to find something nice to send Tysha for her new baby and the craft shop had some beautiful, soft, hand knitted baby blankets. One in particular caught my eye, mostly white with pastel shades, but it was so soft. It was unique, handmade and perfect for baby Willa who now uses it all the time.
I also had to visit the famous Cap Egmont Bottle House Museum. I find all the weird and wonderful museums. The idea for the bottle houses came from a postcard received from Vancouver Island of a glass castle and in 1980 Édouard Arsenault started collecting bottles to construct the bottle buildings at his home. Over 25,000 recycled bottles were cemented together to create a chapel, a house with a piano in it and a tavern. The chapel had pews made from bottles, the house had a bottle interior as well as exterior and the tavern had a bar with lots of bottles on it! There was also a model of the Cap Egmont Lighthouse in the garden, but that wasn’t made out of bottles.
It was a welcome attraction to break up the long drive, but even without the wonderful Bottle House Museum, that part of the coastal drive is so scenic, it would be worth doing anyway.
I called in at Summerside, Prince Edward Island’s second city and capital of Prince County. I had a brief walk into the city, had an ice cream and by now it was late enough for me to drive to North Rustico.
I’d enjoyed the windy western Prince County immensely, now it was time to spend 48 hours in a rotating house by the sea!
I travelled around Atlantic Canada in June 2018.
Details of the 350km North Cape Coastal Drive including map and attractions can be found on the Prince Edward Island tourism website.
The Bideford Parsonage Museum is open daily from 9.00am to 5.00pm from June to beginning of October. Entrance costs $5.00. Bideford is located on the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive 34km from Summerside and 47km from West Cape Lighthouse.
The Cap Egmont Bottle Houses attraction is open from mid May to mid October from 9.00am to 6.00pm. Entrance costs $8.00. The Bottle Houses are located at Cap Egmont on the south coast on southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive and 30km drive from Summerside.
Lennox Island Cultural Centre has interpretive displays about the Mi’kmaq community. Entrance is free. Guided tours are available for a fee. Lennox Island is located on the northern shore of the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive, just 14km to the east of Bideford and 53km from Summerside.
Abram Village is a traditional Acadian community with craft shops and a venue for musical events which take place in high season. Abram Village is located on the southerly section of the North Cape Coastal Drive, 10km from Cap Egmont and 27km from Summerside.
Read about my other adventures on Prince Edward Island.
North Cape Coastal Drive Part 1
Charlottetown – Pocket Capital of Prince Edward Island
Canada: Cavendish and the Rotating House of North Rustico
And check out more of my posts about Canada
Canada: Saint John River Valley
Canada: Magnetic Hill and Fundy National Park
Canada: Quebec – Waterfalls, Via Ferrata and A Religious Theme Park
