Photos by Jim Brown

It was bitterly cold outside the doors of the Stanley Bridge WI on Dec 7 for the WI’s annual Christmas craft fair but it was warm indoors with several vendors attending to hundreds of visitors over the four hours the craft fair ran. There were lots of wonderful gifts to purchase and the building was filled with the sights and scents of Christmas, including plenty of evergreen boughs, apple cider, wooden ornaments, candies and baked delicacies, landscape photos and paintings and woolen goods of all kinds. Some vendors also set up displays outdoors. Click on an image to view images in a lightbox

By Jim Brown

A new brand and a new strategy for drawing more tourists to the central part of the Island were unveiled on Nov 25 at a public workshop in Kensington.

The collaborative ‘Heart of the Island Initiative’ drew dozens of tourism operators to Kensington’s Murray Christian Centre.

Partners for the event were the Town of Kensington, the Kensington and Area Chamber of Commerce and the Central Coastal Tourism Partnership. One of the speakers was Kensington Mayor Rowan Casely.

Organizers want tourist operators to use the hashtag “Heart of PEI” to showcase the area’s many beautiful, striking attractions and the operators’ businesses. Tourist operators were encouraged to work together and pool their resources to draw more visitors – including working with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. They were asked to apply the hashtags to scenic photos posted on websites and across social media platforms.

Participants described a wide variety of opportunities ready for seizing, including capturing more of the booming cycling market by making businesses ‘cycling friendly’ and even offering stations where cyclists can fix deflated tires and complete minor repairs. Others talked about the great opportunities offered by the legalization of cannabis and by drawing more tourists from the LGBTQ community.

Still others talked about the need to promote the area’s many culinary destinations, as well as local artists, farming, beaches and outdoor adventures.

Story and photos by Jim Brown

Post Tropical Storm Dorian slashed through PEI in early September, devastating much of the Island and leaving many questions in its wake.

Maritime Electric CEO Angus Orford was joined by Enrique Riveroll, the utility’s VP of customer service, for a two hour presentation at the Resort Municipality’s regular monthly meeting in early November.

A big part of their presentation dealt with criticism levelled at the Province for not declaring a state of emergency and accessing additional federal resources.

Sometimes you can just have too many people in one place, causing complications, said Orford, especially if they aren’t specially trained to deal with massive electrical disruptions, such power line technicians and utility arborists.

Mayor Matthew Jelley observed Parks Canada brought in trained personnel from places like Jasper, Alberta, Quebec and Newfoundland to cut trees, since they had the level of chainsaw use training required by Parks Canada.

Being out of power for a prolonged period of time doesn’t exactly create warm and fuzzy feelings for utility companies trying to restore everything to normal.

“Customers out for a week are probably not going to fire any accolades at Maritime Electric. But from our perspective it was an extraordinary response,” said Orford.

Re-energizing lines safely takes time, he said.

Trees fall across lines forcing workers to “isolate, clear the tree, re-energize that section and go on to the next section,” said Orford

He added there could be “beautiful weather” to work on power restoration, “but 1,500 fuses go.”
The Island’s Emergency Measures Organization believes people should be able to take care of themselves for three days, said Orford.

Of course that calculus could change in really cold weather that includes ice-storms and heavy snow.

Fortunately, Dorian struck PEI in early September and in the immediate aftermath the weather was sunny and warm.

“The reality of this type of storm is that it creates a lot of labour intensive damage” and people would run up to a lineman and ask to have power restored to their homes when that isn’t possible, said Orford.

It’s a lot different than a car striking and knocking over a pole and a reasonable time frame for repairs can be given, such as four hours.

In the case of Dorian, “Some roads you couldn’t even get down till the trees were out of the way for assessment,” he explained.

Mayor Jelley said hotels booked during Dorian saw significant losses, with guests leaving after just a couple of days – believing the power would be out for much longer. In fact, the power was often restored a short time later, though many were without power for six days.

Maritime Electric has 120,000 poles in the power system, with 100,000 replaced since the 1980s. A total of 80 crews were available to handle the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian.

The Resort Municipality, despite its status as a small community, swells to a population of 20,000 or so in the summer due to a heavy influx of visitors and seasonal residents and as many as 25,000 when the Cavendish Beach Music Festival (CBMF) is on, in early July.

Discussions eventually moved to the problems faced in Cavendish peak periods of the spring and summer.

Deputy Mayor and local businessperson Linda Lowther said her frozen yogurt took a hit last summer.

“We have a frozen yogurt business and we have five ice cream machines and every time Maritime Electric has done any kind of a switch or played with the wires our machines would go down and we’d lose product.”

Lines of communication should be improved, she and other councillors said.

Mayor Jelley said brownouts also happened on the Cavendish Beach Music Festival Weekend.

And he went on to explain that when maintenance to the Rattenbury substation was done earlier this summer in mid-June: “We had fuses blowing, capacitors blowing on motors (and) refrigeration equipment in restaurants failing.”

Maritime Electric is hoping to get a St Mary’s Road project launched before the summer to bring a new transmission line to Cavendish. Mayor Jelley said he hoped it wouldn’t cause too much disruption during the CBMF and other busy times in the high season.

That project is part of a budget application in front of the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission.
Mayor Jelley want to to say: “If you need room for a substation in Cavendish I’ll probably donate the land…Certainly if there’s a transmission line up Route 6 I would do what I could to advocate…and if you need land slightly off Rte 6 and it means more reliable power then I’d be happy to donate the half an acre to make it happen.”

Cavendish is growing and so is the demand for electricity.

“Every cottage operator is putting in those heat pumps on all of their units,” said Linda Lowther.

Mayor Jelley, who is the president of Maritime Fun Group which operates Shining Waters Family Fun Park, said his business is “looking at four new waterslides…120 horsepower total, run 10 to 12 hours a day.”

When the St Mary’s Road project is finished Cavendish will have three feeds running into it.

The Resort Municipality has 14 lift stations, five telephone exchanges and three electrical substations.

Photos by Jim Brown

Hundreds of people attended Remembrance Day ceremonies at the North Rustico cenotaph on Monday, Nov 11, joining thousands of others in services across the Island marking the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers in wars and peacekeeping operations. Attendees were greeted with snow, rain and fierce gusts of wind that forced many to seek shelter under umbrellas. The bleak weather matched the solemn, somber mood during the ceremonies.

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Jim Brown photos
The parking lot was jammed with cars, forcing many motorists to park on the highway’s shoulders at the New London Community Complex’s annual Christmas craft fair on Oct 20.

More than 50 booths were set up and hundreds of people at a time made their way through the building seeking the perfect gift for the holidays. Halloween-themed merchandise was also on sale. Unlike last year’s event, there was no power outage to disrupt shopping.

By Jim Brown

Parks Canada’s Hurricane Dorian cleanup work on the Cavendish Campground and the main beach is being impeded by unwanted sightseers.

“When they spot people on the site everyone has to drop their chainsaws and shut down for 15 minutes,” Mayor Matthew Jelley told councillors at the Resort Municipality’s monthly council meeting on Sept 16.

“Under their labor laws and codes it’s (hurting) cleanup right now.”

These people are being treated as “trespassers” when they show up, said Mr Jelley in his update.

Mayor Jelley went on to say Parks Canada is bringing in commissionaires to the main beach site to steer people away from areas where restoration work is underway.

A great deal of the cleanup work will be done by the end of the week he said. But Hurricane Dorian has caused tremendous damage to certain areas that will take a long time to bring back to some semblance of normalcy and may even prompt changes that could impact the Resort Municipality’s strategic plan.

For instance 80 per cent of trees have been uprooted and knocked down, falling atop power lines, water lines and sewer lines, he said.

On Sept 16 access was still not possible for workers to 20 per cent of the campground, which will be closed for a prolonged period.

Parks Canada will have to tap cleanup funds through various government agencies.

Mr Jelley met with Parks Canada officials four times since Hurricane Dorian struck the Island, including just before the Sept 16 Council meeting

Story and photos by Jim Brown

The word “car” was replaced with “boat” as youngsters assembled at the bridge at the Stanley Bridge wharf on Sunday, Aug. 25, when prizes were handed out to fearless jumpers as part of the 17th annual River Days Festival. Jumpers had to be wary of pleasure craft travelling near and underneath the bridge.
Some older adults also took the plunge during the River Days weekend.

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