Monday 22 September 2025--A few days ago, Ron learned from a relative that one branch of his ancestry stretches back to a locality called Park Corner in Prince Edward Island. I had some other things in mind to do today, but Park Corner is less than two hours from Shediac, and the toll on the bridge has recently been reduced to twenty dollars (Canadian!), which makes a day trip reasonable; so off we go. I take the coastal road on the way to the bridge as much as possible, so we can soak in some local atmosphere. Acadian pride is evident in the village of Cap-Pelé, where the Acadian flag has been painted on anything and everything that it could be--garage doors, mailboxes, utility poles, rocks.

Ron has never been on PEI before. Crossing the seven-mile bridge takes ten minutes or so. Not having planned anything in advance, I fall back on my touring experience. I want to stop at the PEI Preserve Company, anyway, to see how they're doing, since it was recently sold. Four buses parked in front suggest that not much has changed. The original proprietor, a character named Bruce Alexander MacNaughton, used to greet every bus in kilt and sporran. The new owners are PEI tourism industry veterans, and they obviously know better than to mess around much with a good thing.

Our next stop is the picturesque harbor at North Rustico. From there, we turn west and pass through Cavendish, the one really ticky-tack place in PEI, with its Anne of Green Gables-themed amusements and businesses.

Park Corner itself is nothing more than a T-junction, and a heritage cemetery there is a field with no markers, just a commemorative plaque and a sign with a list of names. There is one person listed with the relevant surname, possibly some distant cousin of Ron's. It's not much, but no matter. There's a locality down the road called Irishtown, with a church that is now Anglican, but must have been Catholic at one time. We poke around the adjacent graveyard for a few minutes.

We cross back over the bridge and make a speed tour of Mr Tattie Heid heritage sites: Bayfield Cemetery, Baie Verte, Beaubassin, Fort Beauséjour. [See 9-11 September 2012 and 18 May 2022.] Recently unearthed information indicates that my ancestor, Benjamin Allen, was buried on his own property, and his marker later moved to its current site at the cemetery in Baie Verte. I have no idea where his property was, except that it's somewhere nearby.

This evening we end up back in St Louis. Shediac has been a bit of a disappointment, partly our own fault for not making the best of it. But I think we'd have been better off to spend one night here and two in Moncton, rather than the other way around.