Sonya's Blog - Day 78 - Founder's Hall and Finding Eckhart

Sonya’s Blog - Day 78 - September 8th - Founder’s Hall and Finding Eckhart

Today was a school day and we were going on a field trip. Founder’s Hall in Charlottetown is a museum dedicated to the creation of Canada and the important role that Charlottetown played in it. I also wanted to visit Provincial House, but it is closed for 3 to 5 years for renovations. First the kids had to do some serious schooling today. I had gotten online with Natasha and looked at her Math course. We can get the textbook downloaded and it corresponds with the course that is online. Her first unit is geometry and she got busy with that. Isaac’s math is layed out really nicely as well with lessons and the worksheets that correspond with those lessons. We can put the lessons right on ibooks and print out the worksheets, so that will work really well if we don’t have good wifi access. Isaac worked on his cursive writing, math and his WWI project. Natasha worked on her math and her report on some Social Studies work.

After they worked on those projects for the morning we headed to Founder’s Hall in Charlottetown to learn the story of Canada, which tells the story from it’s inception in 1864 up to Nunavut being made a territory. It was an interesting museum with lots of little facts and interactive displays to make learning history fun. We all learned something new. For example, The Charlottetown Conference was originally just for the Maritime Provinces who were getting together to chat about forming a Maritime Nation. Upper and Lower Canada invited themselves to this conference, but nobody in the Maritimes were too keen on joining up with the rest of Canada. When the HMCS Queen Victoria arrived (it docked where Founder’s Hall is now located), there were no delegates in the harbour to greet them. Sir John A. MacDonald and Sir George Étienne Cartier (who was Co-Premier) had to go about wining and dining the Maritime delegates for 4 days trying to convince them to join with the rest of Canada. They had very few formal meetings, mostly fancy luncheons and dinners where much of the business was discussed. Nothing formal was written down in Charlottetown, that was done a month later in Quebec City. All the delegates traveled to London in 1866 to present the Constitution and Canada became a nation on July 1, 1867 - The Dominion of Canada. At first the Kingdom of Canada was being considered, but it was thought this might upset the Americans and New Brunswick’s Tilley came up with Dominion instead.

We then did a walking tour around Charlottetown in search of Eckhart the mouse. The town has placed 9 bronze statues near historically significant sights in the downtown core. We grabbed a map and went out to find the statues and learn some more about Charlottetown. Eckhart is from a children’s book, The True Meaning of Crumbfest by local author David Weale. We had lots of fun finding Eckhart, Isaac really liked the scavenger hunt. We also stopped at an Oyster Bar for lunch during our search and had great food. The chowder was the best I have had since we had Clam Chowder at Periwinkles in New England on our honeymoon. There was also a book exchange cupboard outside of City Hall. They had The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve so I picked that up. I did not have my books with me that I wanted to donate, but I thought I would bring them by tomorrow when we were back in town. We found all nine Eckhart’s and learned a little more about Charlottetown.

We headed back to the RV once our scavenger hunt was finished with plans to have supper and then head to Cavendish Beach for an hour or so. We had supper, but then the wind picked and we figured it wouldn’t be very nice with the sand blowing in our faces at Cavendish. So we stayed at camp. The kids and Blake played some games and I started on The Pilot’s Wife and read it straight through to the end. It was a good book. It is about a woman who is married to an airline pilot and his plane crashes and he dies. The book is about the aftermath of the crash and how her and her daughter get through it with all the discoveries that are made.

Sonya