The Mi’kmaq, as a distinct ethnic group, may have inhabited what they called Epekwitk, and what we now call Prince Edward Island, for several millennia. It is here that they settled and lived in birchbark shelters called wigwams.   … animate thing lying in the water ... Photo from the internet, by WestJet pilot Steve MacDonald Last year I came across an aerial photograph of the Island taken by WestJet pilot Steve MacDonald which had a profound effect on my perception of the Island. In this photo, I saw for the first time, an island disconnected from all evidence of French and British colonial contact. I realised at once that…

A very early Franciscan description of settlement in the forest. In 1726 a Franciscan missionary travelled about the Island ministering to desperate Catholics in need of comfort and the sacraments. Fr. Kergariou wrote a description of what he saw in his travels and a transcript of it survives in MacMillan, p. 18. ” It was the winter of 1726. During the cold season the shores of the Gulf of. St. Lawrence, usually stern in appearance, put on look of sombre grandeur, seen nowhere but in the far North. Immense fields of ice float at the mercy of the winds in that inland sea. Days whose noonday light is reduced by…

Today, Lieutenant Governor Antoinette Perry opened Government House for a public event for the first time since the plague began. The Comité historique Soeur-Antoinette-DesRoches had been invited to hold it annual prize-giving event in the House and the programme began with introductions of distinguished guests and reminiscences by various individuals of three previous Acadian Islanders who had filled the post of Lieutenant Governor in this very building. Her Honour also explained the symbolism of the beautiful coat of arms presented to her upon her accession. Photo by Trevor Gillingwater The Comité historique Soeur-Antoinette-Desroches had decided to give me a most desirable award, the Prix Gilbert-Buote, for the work I had…

In one of my earlier posts, I described how interest in seeing things from on high had its origins in ancient times and, with the invention of photography and the advent of the aeroplane took on an extremely important role in providing new data for mapping purposes and the study and analysis of the configuration of the land for agriculture, forestry, and mining, but also for extremely accurate recording of the progress of World War I. https://regporter.com/pei/2020/04/09/the-origins-of-interest-in-aerial-views/ It was when I flew, for the first time ever, from my new home in Montreal to the Island, that I became intensely interested in the view from the air and what it…

The following are my last two posts about maps that concern Prince Edward Island. It is the almost-end of a project that began innocently on June 30, 2020, and which was meant to be a light survey of the most significant Island maps, and which fate somehow turned into a much more comprehensive research project as I became increasingly fascinated with the components of this chronological series. The unwritten subtitle of my Heritage Blog is a personal view. As my study of Island maps moves into the middle of the Twentieth Century my memories leap back to scenes and events that I have illustrated with contemporary photographs. That was the…