Southern Kings County
Hi! We see you’ve just arrived via the Nova Scotia/Prince
Edward Island
ferry service. The ferry
connects Caribou, Nova Scotia and Wood Islands, P.E.I. and is
operated by
Northumberland Ferries
Ltd. If you haven’t picked up your travel guides yet, stop
in at the Visitor Information Centre on your way out of the ferry
terminal compound (
you must exit the compound and re-enter,
to gain access to the Visitor Information Centre) and pick
up your guide and map or you can
order
visitor information online or send us an
e-mail
and we’ll have them mailed to you.
Besides the ferry terminal the harbour also houses a small
fishing fleet. The fishing boats go out early in the morning
for lobsters (May & June), scallops and groundfish and
return by mid-morning. They aren’t out right now and you can
see one of them tied up at the wharf
The Northumberland Strait which separates
the rest of Canada from P.E.I. was named for the HMS Northumberland,
the flagship of Admiral Lord Colville who sruveyed the area
in 1764. Wood Islands is named for the two small islands
which are now joined and form the harbour.
Turn right at the junction onto route
4. This is the beginning of the eastern portion of the Kings
Byway Drive. On both sides of the road is a mixed spruce forest
and some small bogs. The Island was originally covered in
a mixed hardwood forest but was logged to clear land for farming
and shipbuilding. The land is now regrowing as a spruce forest.
If you want to camp or enjoy a picnic lunch, you can stop
at the Northumberland Provincial Park. The park features a campground,
playground, day use picnic area and a sandy
beach.
This is the first of many sandy beaches you will see on the Island
and many of them will be as busy as the one shown here.
After leaving the park, there is more
mixed forest but you will also see small fields, many of
which have been abandoned and are being reclaimed as forest.
You are now entering Kings County,
which is why our tour route is called the Kings Byway. The
Island is divided into three counties, Prince at the western
end, Queens in the middle and Kings on the eastern end. You
are now in Little Sands which was named for the sandy shore
between Wood Islands and High Bank.
Some visitors have bought properties and converted them into
summer
retreats.
This area is named High Bank for the
sandstone cliffs which rise to 25 M (75 ft) and fall away
on either side to Little Sands and White Sands.
