Some Day is Here: the North Shore Coastal Drive

8-11-11 We began our north coastal drive in Summerside. It seemed to be a place to spend a day. a nice river walk and a shipyard. We noticed festive mailboxes and potato stands along the way. the potato stands are on the honor paying system. there is a place to leave the money for what you take!! imagine that happening at home. Our first stop was in Mount Carmel. PEI has alot of older churches of the Neo Gothical architecture. the Notre-Dame-du- Mont-Carmel is one of them. this was a huge complex to view and photograph. It is overlooking the water and expresses the sense of community of the Aracadian people. This region is called Evangeline The Arcadian people are desendents of the first french settlers on PEI. We traveled on to Cap Egmont and stopped at the three houses made of bottles. They were built by Edouard Arsenault. He began collecting bottles in 1979 at the age of 66. More than 30,000 recycled bottles of various sizes and shapes and colors were used. PEI has recycling drops all over. but this man was way ahead of the time with recycling! We went to the town of O'Leary which is located in the middle of extensive agriculture and fishing industries here on PEI. O'Leary was named for one of its earliest settlers, Michael O'Leary. He arrived to PEI in 1837 and settled in the West Cape overlooking the Northumberland Strait. The Potato Museum is there with a 14 ft. statue of a potato in front. Potatoes are the cornerstone of PEIs economy. the fields of potatoes in any direction you go on PEI are beautiful with the white blooms.
In Bloomfield, we walked through the MacAusland's woolen mill. unfortunately for us, the workers were eating their lunch. the machines were not running and the workers were enjoying their card games so we just walked through. bruce had seen so many textile mills like this in his working days.
Miminegash is where the harvesting of Irish Moss is done, by boat or the old way by horse drawn rakes on the beach. carregageenan in the Irish Moss has the capability to gel. It is used in the food and beauty product industry. (jellies, ice cream, baby food toothpaste and skin conditioning products. Here we stopped for a MOD of lobster burger and seaweed pie. the Seaweed Pie cafe is owned/operated by the "Women in support of Fishing" in the community's former schoolhouse. We traveled on to the North Cape. Here the horizon is filled with huge wind turbines.The wind energy research center is located here. A number of different wind turbines including the largest in North America have been evaluated here. The North cape lighthouse. the elongated rock reef and the seals were great to see. The tide was high when we were there. Whent the tide is low, you can walk about one kilometer on the longest rock reef in North America. this reef seperates the St Lawrence river and the Northumberland Strait.