Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/379

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PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
319

the culture of oysters by the Provincial Government. Malpeque "eyesters" already have an extra-insular reputation. About seven thousand acres have been leased to individuals and firms who propose to increase by scientific methods the diminishing oyster crop. Formerly Prince Edward Island led all the provinces of Canada in its oyster production. Along its 400 miles of shore fronting on gulf and strait there are more than 180 lobster canneries.

Summerside facing the strait and the New Brunswick coast lies only 3 miles from Malpeque Bay, which stretches 10 miles in from the gulf. A hill on the intervening isthmus has an outlook upon marine views to the south, the west and the north. Even the railway littérateurs can find nothing to say of Summerside except that sitting in a draught of sea air it is always cool when other towns are not. Hoping for this reason to attract vacation visitors its citizens bestowed the present delusive name, vice former Princetown.

The Micmac chief lives with all the Indians of the Prince Edward district on Ellis Island, the station for which is Port Hill. The reservation is an orderly community and has its own schools taught by native teachers.

On both sides of the willowy road to Tignish there are glimpses of the sea, of fishing rivers and of ponds where wild fowl congregate. The woven fences of fox farms show among thinned-out groves.