The Island; "A hegweit” 
     
    
   
   
    
     There is a' joke that has been repeated so often that nearly every- 
     
     body I know has heard it: A man, who went off the Island for the 
     
     first time, met a stranger on the mainland who asked him “Where 
     
     are you from?” He replied “The Island”. The man asked him, 
     
     “What Island?” To this question, which he thought indicated the 
     
     man’s great ignorance, he replied with impatience, “Prince Edward 
     
     Island, what other island is there?” It is called “The Garden of the 
     
     Gulf”, it is so beautiful in summer. The Indians called it “Abegweit”; 
     
     which means, “Resting on the wave.” Jacques Cartier discovered this 
     
     Island on St. John’s Day and named it “Isle St. Jean”. It retained 
     
     this name until 1800, when the Legislature changed it to its present 
     
     name in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the father of 
     
     Queen Victoria. 
     
    

    
     That is where I was born and brought up. It is “The Island” to 
     
     me. There is none like it; none so lovely, none so dear. Sir Walter 
     
     Scott expresses my feelings in his fervent patriotic words the school 
     
     children know so well: 
     
    
   
   
    
     "Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, 
     
     ‘Who never to himself hath said, 
     
     This is my own, my native land? 
     
     Whose heart hath ne’er within him hurn’d, 
     
     As home his footsteps he hath turn’d, 
     
     From wandering on a foreign strand?” 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Island is about 120 miles long and has an average breadth 
     
     of 30 miles. It is cut nearly across in the middle by two tidal rivers. 
     
     If you look at the map you will see it is shaped like a horn, or a cres- 
     
     cent, with the points turned toward the north and sticking out into the 
     
     Gulf of St. Lawrence. In between these horns, or points, was a danger- 
     
     ous place for the fleets of sailing vessels that came there every summer; 
     
     if they were caught in there in a northerly gale they could not clear 
     
     the points of the horns in trying to get out. Shipwrecks were common 
     
     occurrences. Sometimes after one of these gales vessels would be 
     
     stranded on the beach. Once I saw a vessel that upset in the raging 
     
    
   
   
    
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