While the pages of The Quid are consumed by the Cégepian inferiority complex and a debate over the shortage of social conservatives, I find that each day I walk into this building something about one of my classmates amazes me. Everyday. Since September I have met students who speak myriads of languages, come from a multitude of cultural backgrounds and whose lives prior to McGill Law include everything from acting to police work, from working in refugee camps to fashion design. Being in complete awe of these classmates has more than a few times caused me to wonder what the hell the Admissions Committee was thinking when they let me in.
And yet, despite such an abundance of diversity, somehow everyone seems absolutely blown away with the fact that I am from PEI. If there is such thing as a positive stereotype, I have certainly been the victim of one over the past few months: “I love people from PEI!”, “My parents were there in 1982!”, “I’ve always wanted to go to PEI!”. The twelve-hour drive from PEI to Montréal has brought me closer to being a foreign-exchange student than I’ve ever been in my life.
By the questions I get on daily basis, it is obvious that the knowledge most students here have about PEI is limited to the ‘PEI Potato Marketing Board’ decision, so I figured that a poorly written article in The Quid would be better than nothing. So here is a crash-course on P.E.Islandology. These are all actual questions that I have been asked.
“Do you know Anne of Green Gables?”
Actually no. She is, in fact, a fictional character, and her stories are set in the early 1900s. So if she were real, she’d be dead.
“Is Anne of Green Gables a bigger deal on PEI than it is everywhere else?”
Actually, Anne is a lot bigger in Japan than she is anywhere else: thousands of Japanese tourists flock to PEI every summer to see Anne’s (fake) house and watch her (fictional) musicals. It is a pretty big deal on PEI though, at least economically. Dozens of my friends have played Anne, Diana, or some other character in some capacity at some point in their life. This total immersion in Anne culture explains in part the angst that myself and a lot of us Islanders have for her.
“Can you jog around PEI in, like a few hours?”
Eff sakes. By area, PEI is about 11x the size of Montréal. Depending on how heavy your foot is and on how well you know the speed traps on the Trans Canada, you can drive from tip to tip in three hours, give or take.
But you would be right if you guessed PEI has a small population. The most recent census sets PEI with a population of 139,818 (139,817 now that I’m gone).
“Why the hell does PEI have four seats in the House of Commons?”
Good question, seeing as with that population, PEI is only slightly larger than a city like Trois-Rivières. After refusing to join Confederation (after a meeting about Confederation that we hosted), we figured we’d shop around, maybe join the States, build an insolvent railroad and I guess whatever else they used to do back in 1870 (growing potatoes would likely be a good guess). But then John A. and the other Upper Canadians came down for another visit, and among other things, promised to assume the colony's debt, basically buy all the land on PEI from absentee landlords and give it to us, build a bridge (or use ferries until the bridge was built in 1997) and to give PEI what is probably the most ridiculous disproportionate representation in Parliament. Not exactly a hard sell. So Islanders said “To hell with this,” (a common Island phrase) “why work if we can get it all for free?” (also a common Island phrase). The Island has been drawing pogey and equalization payments ever since.
“Is there much ethnic diversity on PEI?”
Not unless you include species of trees as ‘diversity’. Ninety-nine percent of PEI’s population is of European descent. In the absence of racial tension, Islanders have adapted by having the Catholics make fun of the Protestants and the Protestants make fun of the Catholics. Then collectively we all make fun of CFAs (come from aways). Upper Canadians are a favorite target of ours, as some Torontonians in the Faculty have already found out from me.
“How are Islanders different from Mainlanders?”
Well that’s a bit more complicated. We all grew up being subjected to the same fads, watching the same TV and listening to the same music as everyone else (we just got them six years later than the rest of you did).
There are some differences of course. Dialect for example. My parents ‘warsh’ clothes instead of washing them. My Dad wears short pants in the summer. When we were kids, they bought us ‘kitbags’ to carry our books in, and when there is ice on the driveway it is ‘slippy’.
There are some paradigmatic shifts as well. The concept of ‘open bars’ that is so prevalent here in Montréal would be completely lost on most of my friends and family. No one is stupid enough to advertise ‘free alcohol’ at any event on PEI. None of the bars have a capacity of 139,818 anyway.
When it comes to politics, there are only two options PEI: only one person who wasn’t Liberal or Conservative has been elected, ever. And your last name and hometown is usually a good indication of how you voted. Seriously.
I also feel that PEI has a good hold on old-fashioned, family-oriented community-ness. I mean, I am sure there are strong communities all across Canada, but the Island seems unique. The bar scene, for example, is a million times different on PEI than here in Montréal. Stumble into any one of the thousands of bars here and you’ll run into the same bunch of non-descript douches and ditzes who scowl and push and curse at you, often in a language you don’t understand. Stumble into any of the five main bars in Charlottetown and you’re suddenly at a party with a ton of your friends: the kids you went to elementary, junior and high school with, undoubtedly some family and that cute girl that was in your first-year History class. Sure, there are drawbacks if you have a penchant for macking randos on the dancefloor and therefore seek anonymity, and sure, some fights break out now and then, but it’s all a lot less serious. No one is going to get knifed or anything.
PEI is the kind of place where anyone who can comes home for Christmas and for at least a few weeks in the summer. It may sound a little morbid, but people keep informed by listening to the obituaries on the radio every day. In my mind, that’s how it’s supposed to be: you are welcomed into the world, spend your life among, and are bid farewell by you friends.
So go ahead. Call me backwards and backwoods. I’d trade a thousand CN Towers for a good bag of potatoes, a day at the beach, a night of camping and a few beer with friends at a PEI bar.
