Trading on an Island and its People

Trading on an Island and its People Elizabeth (Beth) Jewett (bio) ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2022, THE POST-TROPICAL STORM FIONA ravaged Prince Edward Island's (PEI's) tourist landscape. Questions arose concerning whether this type of extreme but increasingly common climate change-based weather event would become part of the Island's future "summer trade" and what consequences might be in store for all those linked to this industry as producers and consumers.1 These types of questions are not new for those living, working, and playing on PEI. The work of Alan MacEachern and Edward MacDonald in The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island provides an entertaining and enlightening analysis of how to situate this recent devastation and its alteration of iconic seascapes, landscapes, attractions, and experiences into a wider understanding of Island life and tourism.2 This book is a fitting next chapter both to the authors' previous collaboration on Island marine transportation and its connections to islandness – an island's otherness or distinctiveness from the mainland – and a growing tourism industry as well as to their projects exploring the Island's stories through its national park, experiments in sustainable living, fishing, and aquaculture.3 [End Page 116] Summer Trade thoughtfully traces the evolution of the relationships between Islanders – from private individuals to government officials – and those who "come from away" across the range of Island environments. Unlike the authors, I did not grow up on PEI. I am from "away." I am one of the many whose family's traditions included summer vacations on Epekwitk (Mi'kmaq for "laying in the water") – this advertised "Garden of the Gulf" – only to realize that two weeks every year was not enough time, and so our family bought land and built a cottage. I have been part of the "summer trade" for most of my life. Reading MacEachern and MacDonald's fascinating history of tourism on Prince Edward Island not only transported me back to meaningful vacation memories of attractions, beaches, and experiences, but also pulled back the curtain for me on the complexities and fragilities of creating the tourism industry that dominates so much of PEI landscapes and life. This book is a valuable addition to any academic's library with an interest in the histories of tourism, Atlantic Canada, leisure, environment, and so much more; but it also finds an audience with Islanders and Island tourists who will undoubtedly read, in great detail, about familiar people and places and have a chance to reflect on them in a new light. Summer Trade is a sweeping and yet very detailed history of tourism on PEI. Though Mi'kmaw contributions and the racialized dimensions of Island tourism are discussed throughout, this is a history of predominantly white tourists and tourism providers. It encompasses the first travel writings that mention the Island's pleasing natural environments as suitable travel destinations in the latter half of the 19th century through to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequences of climate change for the future of this vital industry. Throughout, the reader is treated to an overarching narrative of human/nature relationships made visible and meaningful through the stories of individual characters and organizations that help personalize the broad history. The vividness of this history is also constructed through a plethora of postcards, advertisements, drawings, photographs, and memorabilia in the book and that bring Island moments, real and imaginary, to life. The core of the book covers five themes that are key to understanding the foundations and transformations of the Island's summer trade and that weave themselves throughout the chronological chapters that detail the rich, complex, and often contested history of Island tourism. The book's five themes are the island imagined, destinations are not destined, professionalization, "hospitility," and the summer trade. [End Page 117] The narrative begins with an informative introduction on the nature of tourism and how wider historiographies and theoretical approaches fit with PEI experiences, and then it dives into the five key themes of the book. The first theme – the island imaged – meditates on the stable and persistent image presented to tourists by PEI producers and consumers during the last 150...

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