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rfmcdonaldThe previously announced news that I reported last month, claiming that William and Kate might visit Prince Edward Island as part of their visit to Canada, (perhaps because of the Duchess of Cambridge's reported fondness for Anne of Green Gables) has been fulfilled. According to this news source, they will be spending time visiting Charlottetown and Summerside, flying over Green Gables House (putative site of Anne Shirley's homestead), and spending considerable time at Dalvay by the Sea, an inn on the fringes of the Prince Edward Island National Park. Hello! Magazine has the Dalvay-by-the-Sea segment down.
I'm intimately familiar with that inn--some of my favourite beaches are just a couple of minutes to the west--but non-Islanders are most likely familiar with Dalvay-by-the-Sea as the stand-in for the White Sands Inn described in Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous work. (The raspberry cordial that Hello! mentions, incidentally, is a locally-produced carbonated raspberry juice)
All this highlights an interesting sort of paradox. Prince Edward Island is a province that has promoted itself as a tourist destination on the grounds of its traditionalism, its vibrant folk culture and its well-tended rural landscapes and its scenic fishing villages and its continued sustained difference from the rest of Canada and the Island's other tourist-sending countries. That's fine; that's a not-inaccurate reflection of the past and even the current reality.
Prince Edward Island is also a province that has plugged itself thoroughly into global popular culture and global economic trends and global everything. Premier Robert Ghiz is quite right to note that the visit of William and Kate will be "Prince Edward Island's shining moment on the international stage" and that it will be the "largest media event in our province's history." Extensive global media coverage is only a mild exaggeration of previous trends, with Anne's exceptional popularity in Japan (along with the use of Prince Edward Island tuna for sushi) connecting Prince Edward Island with Japan in an unexpected but rather lucrative fashion. Closer to home, Prince Edward Island has taken in very large numbers of tourists not only from North America and Japan, but globally. At tourism's peak pre-9/11, a million or so tourists visited Prince Edward Island; the province's total population at the time was in the area of 140 thousand. The sheer intensity of this flow belies any notion of the Island as being fundamentally aloof from the rest of the world. Increasingly, it's a mere pretense.
Ironic, isn't it? The anti-globalized identity that Prince Edward Island claims helps connect the Island quite intimately to the outside world, making its nominal cultural traditionalism and economic future subordinate to the whims of global popular culture. Prince Edward Island globalizes its ideal self, and in engaging in globalization changes its actual nature.
Their private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, has revealed that, as part of their official North American tour, the royal couple will be taking part in a race against each other across a lake on Canada’s Prince Edward Island.
“Their Royal Highnesses will team up with Dragonboat racers, taking a boat each – although I hasten to add, not themselves paddling, though probably steering – and they will race across the lake to the opposite bank where crowds will be gathered,” he said.
“After congratulating the winning team, the couple will be welcomed by First Nations people with a traditional “smudging” ceremony.”
The royals will then sample some local delicacies, which are said to include raspberry cordial, chocolate covered potato crisps and Prince Edward Island’s famous lobster.
From there, the pair will head to the beach, where “young people will be engaged in a range of beach sports, and the couple will start one of the games and present prizes to the winners of various competitions”.
I'm intimately familiar with that inn--some of my favourite beaches are just a couple of minutes to the west--but non-Islanders are most likely familiar with Dalvay-by-the-Sea as the stand-in for the White Sands Inn described in Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous work. (The raspberry cordial that Hello! mentions, incidentally, is a locally-produced carbonated raspberry juice)
All this highlights an interesting sort of paradox. Prince Edward Island is a province that has promoted itself as a tourist destination on the grounds of its traditionalism, its vibrant folk culture and its well-tended rural landscapes and its scenic fishing villages and its continued sustained difference from the rest of Canada and the Island's other tourist-sending countries. That's fine; that's a not-inaccurate reflection of the past and even the current reality.
Prince Edward Island is also a province that has plugged itself thoroughly into global popular culture and global economic trends and global everything. Premier Robert Ghiz is quite right to note that the visit of William and Kate will be "Prince Edward Island's shining moment on the international stage" and that it will be the "largest media event in our province's history." Extensive global media coverage is only a mild exaggeration of previous trends, with Anne's exceptional popularity in Japan (along with the use of Prince Edward Island tuna for sushi) connecting Prince Edward Island with Japan in an unexpected but rather lucrative fashion. Closer to home, Prince Edward Island has taken in very large numbers of tourists not only from North America and Japan, but globally. At tourism's peak pre-9/11, a million or so tourists visited Prince Edward Island; the province's total population at the time was in the area of 140 thousand. The sheer intensity of this flow belies any notion of the Island as being fundamentally aloof from the rest of the world. Increasingly, it's a mere pretense.
Ironic, isn't it? The anti-globalized identity that Prince Edward Island claims helps connect the Island quite intimately to the outside world, making its nominal cultural traditionalism and economic future subordinate to the whims of global popular culture. Prince Edward Island globalizes its ideal self, and in engaging in globalization changes its actual nature.
