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travel / travel magazine / winter 2007
GateWay
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TOURISM
The real P.E.I.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND usually
means three things to tourists: beaches,
lobster and a certain freckle-faced redhead.
But if you’re looking for more inspiring
vacation tales to tell this winter — like
how you speared smelts while ice fishing
or how it felt to mush a dog team to shore
— Bill and Mary Kendrick can help you
unearth the true character of the island.
After years of hearing about activities
that struck a chord with their guests at
Briarcliffe Inn Bed & Breakfast in
Bedeque, P.E.I., the Kendricks established
Experience PEI, a service that takes visitors
off typical tourist routes to meet and
interact with islanders and participate in
island culture.
“We specialize in activities tourists don’t
normally get the opportunity to experience,” says Bill, a former
television journalist who, along with his antique-dealer
wife, aims to create new ways to see P.E.I.
year-round.
In winter, visitors can rent a sheet of ice
for curling or sip hot cocoa after a horsedrawn
sleigh ride. Come summer, they
can tong for oysters, harness race, sculpt
sandcastles with a pro or even head backstage
at P.E.I.’s longest-running little
theatre, the Victoria Playhouse.
The Kendricks, who opened Briarcliffe
in 2002, say the concept for their new
business grew from their role as innkeepers.
Each morning, guests would ask them
what they could do.
“We were sending them to all the traditional
places on the island,” says Bill. “At
the end of the day, we’d sit and talk with
them over a glass of wine, and we started
to realize the guests who had managed to
meet up with an islander — those who
had somehow stumbled upon someone
doing something — really seemed to come
alive. They were the ones who would be
coming back to P.E.I.”
And the island is not just a summer
getaway. “We think it’s a marvellous place
for people to come in the winter,” says
Bill. “Islanders don’t hibernate. We go out
and do things.”
For more information on the range of
activities with Experience PEI, contact:
(866) 887-3238; www.experiencepei.ca.
— Shelley Cameron-McCarron
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