 |
CultureGrams (get trial access) can help you broaden your students' understanding of the world and its peoples. The World Edition includes 200+ country profiles, written for junior high students and older. CultureGrams also has a Kids Edition, Provinces Edition, and a States Edition, geared for upper elementary students. These editions include kid-friendly profiles of 70+ countries, all 50 states (including Washington, D.C.), and 13 Canadian provinces and territories.
CultureGrams goes beyond mere facts and figures to deliver an insider's perspective on daily life and culture, including the history, customs, and lifestyles of the world's people.
Province: Prince Edward Island
Did You Know?
- Islanders refer to anyone who wasn't born on the island as being "from away."
- The island is named after Queen Victoria's father—Prince Edward, Duke of Kent.
- Prince Edward Island has the lowest crime rate in Canada.
- In the 1700s, mice overran the province, eating their way across the island's farmland. The town of Souris (French for "mouse") got its name from this plague.
Geography
As the smallest province in the nation, Prince Edward Island covers a total area of 5,660 square kilometres (2,185 sq miles). It's about the same size as the state of Delaware. Prince Edward Island is 224 kilometres (140 miles) long. The island is 6 kilometres (4 miles) wide at the narrowest point, and 64 kilometres (40 miles) wide at the widest point. Prince Edward Island is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is shaped like a crescent moon. The province is separated from its fellow Maritime Provinces—Nova Scotia and New Brunswick—by the Northumberland Strait. All but one lake and one river in the province are saltwater, and the island's stunning beaches stretch for close to 800 kilometres (500 miles). The coastline is dotted with lagoons, bays, and sandstone cliffs, while the inland is covered in sandy dunes and rolling hills. Hillsborough Bay and Malpeque Bay are the two largest bays in the province.
Cultural Note: Anne of Green Gables
In 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery published her first novel, a book called Anne of Green Gables. Set in the small town of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, the story of the feisty orphan, Anne Shirley, became an international bestseller and instant favourite with readers. The book was so popular that Montgomery wrote seven more books about Anne. These books have been translated into seventeen different languages and made into five movies, a musical, and an animated series. Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has never gone out of print. Today, many of the places featured in the books have become major tourist sites on Prince Edward Island, including the Green Gables farmhouse in Cavendish and the nearby Balsam Hollow, which was the model for Anne's Haunted Woods.
Cultural Note: College of Piping
The majority of the Island's population descends from either Scottish or Irish settlers. These descendents take great pride in the establishment of the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada in Summerside. This college is the only one of its kind in North America. Open year-round, the college offers instruction in traditional Celtic disciplines such as dance, drumming, and Highland bagpiping. When it was founded in 1990, the college had 30 full-time students. Now it has more than 400 year-round students from around the world. As part of its goal to preserve the island's Celtic culture, the College of Piping hosts an annual Celtic Festival with evening concerts all summer long.
|
|
|
