Tour My Town Audio Tours

06/16/2026

Lots of seagulls kicking back in the parking lot this morning!

06/10/2026

What if you threw a message in a bottle into the ocean... and someone on the other side of the world wrote back?

That's exactly what Harold "The Bottle Man" Hackett of Tignish did.

Beginning in 1996, Harold tossed thousands of bottles into the waters off North Cape, each containing a simple note inviting whoever found it to write back.

Over the next 22 years, he released more than 10,000 bottles.

And people responded.

By 2018, more than 4,800 people had written back after finding one of Harold's bottles on beaches, in fishing grounds, and along coastlines far from Prince Edward Island.

His bottles connected him with people from New Brunswick, North Carolina, England, Holland, Portugal, and many other places around the world. Some became lifelong friends. One woman from England exchanged letters with Harold for nearly 20 years, often mailing them in unusual containers like watering cans, piñatas, and Easter bunnies.

When Harold threw his final bottle into the sea in 2018, he estimated that thousands more were still drifting somewhere in the world's oceans, waiting to be discovered.

Harold has since passed away, but around Tignish he is still fondly remembered as "The Bottle Man"—the Island fisherman who turned a simple message in a bottle into friendships that spanned the globe.

06/10/2026

06/07/2026

PEI folklore warning: If a snake comes rolling after you like a wheel… jump a fence.

Older generations around the Tignish area have long told stories about the legendary “Hoop Snake”. A strange serpent said to grab its tail in its mouth and roll after people like a giant living wheel.

According to folklore, the hoop snake only rolled when attacking. If it needed to pass through a fence, it had to straighten itself out first, giving its target a chance to escape.

The stories described the creature as being roughly the size of a steering wheel and moving with incredible speed while in pursuit.

Whether real or just a tale passed down through generations, the legend of the hoop snake became part of the strange and wonderful folklore of Western PEI.

Believe it… or maybe don’t!

Have you ever heard stories about hoop snakes growing up on PEI? We heard about them quite often when we were children.

Wikipedia has more information on them if you want to check it out.

06/03/2026

PEI's WWI Flying Ace

A young man from Alberton made aviation history during the First World War.

On December 12, 1917, Wendell Rogers of Alberton, Prince Edward Island became the first Allied fighter pilot to shoot down one of Germany's massive Gotha bombers.

The Gotha was one of the most feared aircraft of the war. These giant bombers carried out long-range raids over England and were difficult targets for fighter pilots to bring down.

During an aerial battle high above the front lines, Rogers successfully attacked and destroyed one of the bombers, becoming the first Allied pilot to achieve the feat.

For his courage and skill, he was awarded the Military Cross.

Not bad for a young Islander from Alberton.

Today, Wendell Rogers remains one of PEI's lesser-known war heroes, but his place in aviation history is secure.

Learn more interesting stories like this on one of our audio tours of Tignish and Charlottetown.

06/03/2026

I might be bias, but I recommend this tour! 😉

05/29/2026

Ever wonder how skunks ended up on Prince Edward Island?

Believe it or not, they were imported on purpose.

In 1912, Island entrepreneurs were looking for the next fur-farming goldmine. The silver fox industry had made PEI famous around the world, and investors hoped skunks might become the next big thing.

Farmers imported striped skunks and even selectively bred them to reduce their distinctive white stripes. Their pelts weren't marketed as skunk fur at all. Instead, they were often sold as "sable" to make them more appealing to buyers.

The problem? Skunk fur was cheap.

While a skunk pelt sold for only $8 to $12, silver fox pelts could bring $300 to $400 or more. Then came the First World War, and the global fur market collapsed.

Rather than continue feeding animals that could no longer be sold profitably, many farmers simply released their skunks into the wild.

Until then, skunks had not been found on Prince Edward Island.

The animals adapted quickly, multiplied, and before long became a permanent part of Island wildlife.

05/27/2026

Did PEI almost invent flight before the Wright brothers?

In 1889, Lauren Doucette of Kildare Station, PEI told the local newspaper he had successfully completed a flying machine.

Curious neighbours reportedly paid 10 cents each to come see the invention, earning Doucette the nickname: L’Oiseau or The Bird.

There’s no evidence his machine ever truly flew, but the timing is fascinating.

Just 14 years later, in 1903, the Wright brothers achieved the world’s first controlled, sustained flight of a powered aircraft.

Was Lauren Doucette simply dreaming big? Or was a tiny PEI community experimenting with flight before the rest of the world caught on?

05/24/2026

PEI may have helped discover one of the world’s earliest prehistoric reptiles… and it happened by accident.

In 1845, Donald MacLeod of French River, Prince Edward Island was digging a well when he uncovered a strange rock filled with teeth.

The fossil was sent to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, where it was named Bathygnathus Borealis.

Today, scientists believe the fossil belonged to a Dimetrodon, a sail-backed reptile that lived roughly 300 million years ago.

And here’s the wild part, Dimetrodon wasn’t actually a dinosaur.

It went extinct nearly 40 million years before dinosaurs even appeared.

MacLeod’s discovery may also have been the first Dimetrodon fossil ever found anywhere in the world.

Not bad for a day spent digging a well on PEI 😄

05/22/2026

PEI helped change communication around the world.

In 1852, engineer Frederick Gisborne laid the first submarine telegraph cable in North America between Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick and Carleton, Prince Edward Island.

At the time, this was groundbreaking technology. Messages that once took a day by boat could suddenly travel almost instantly beneath the water.

A few years later, Gisborne joined forces with businessman Cyrus Field to tackle an even bigger challenge: connecting North America to Europe by telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1858, they succeeded, creating the world’s first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. For the first time in history, messages flashed across the ocean in minutes from Bay of Bulls, Newfoundland to Valentia Island, Ireland, instead of weeks.

Unfortunately, the cable only lasted a few weeks before failing. It would take three more attempts and eight more months before a permanent connection to Europe was finally achieved.

Not bad for technology that partly began right here on Prince Edward Island.