Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Categories: Cities in Prince Edward Island | Coastal towns of Canada

For the federal electoral district see Charlottetown (electoral district)

Charlottetown is a Canadian city and the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, with a population of 32,245 as of 2001. The city, which was incorporated as a town in 1855 and redesignated as a city in 1885, is also the seat of Queens County.

Geography

Charlottetown is situated on its namesake harbour which is formed by the confluence of three rivers in the central part of the island along its south shore. The harbour itself opens onto the Northumberland Strait. In 1995 the present city was created by amalgamating Charlottetown with the communities of Sherwood, Parkdale, Hillsborough Park, Winsloe, West Royalty, and East Royalty.

Downtown Charlottetown includes the city's original 500 lots, as surveyed by Captain Samuel Holland, as well as the waterfront facing the harbour and the Hillsborough River. Adjacent communities to the original downtown included Brighton, Spring Park, and Parkdale. The areas to the west, north and east of downtown have been developed in recent decades with several residential and commercial/retail developments, although the outer regions of the city are still predominantly farmland, as is an area in the centre of the city where an Agriculture Canada crop research station is located.

Economy

Charlottetown's economy, as with most provincial capitals in Canada, is dominated by the public sector. Both the provincial, federal, and municipal levels of government are significant employers in the central part of Queens County, as well as healthcare and secondary and post-secondary education. Technology companies have also been increasing their share of the city's workforce in the past decade, however the actual numbers are quite small once call-centres are excluded. Other signficant economic activities include light manufacturing such as chemicals, bio-technology, and machining.

Tourism

Charlottetown is a popular destination in eastern Canada for visitors from other Maritime provinces, central Canada and the northeastern United States, as the city has a central location in the province as well as various services. The city's streetscapes with a centrally-planned downtown core containing many Victorian-era houses and buildings is an attraction, as well as a waterfront redevelopment project in recent decades which has seen walking trails and parks developed on former industrial lands.

Popular attractions within the city include the provincial legislature at Province House, which hosted the Charlottetown Conference, as well as Founders Hall, a recently redeveloped railway maintenance building which now houses an interactive trip through history tracing the development of Canada as a nation. The Confederation Centre of the Arts provides live theatre, including the Charlottetown Festival during the summer months, as well as a nationally-ranked art gallery. The Charlottetown Festival itself is headlined by Canada's most popular and longest-running musical, Anne of Green Gables - The Musical, which is an adaptation of Island author Lucy Maude Montgomery's novel.

History

Port La Joye

The first Europeans in the area, then known as Île Saint-Jean, were the French, whereby personnel from Fortress Louisbourg founded a settlement in 1720 named Port La Joye on the southwestern part of the harbour opposite from the present-day city. This settlement was led by Michel Hache-Gallant, who used his sloop to ferry Acadians from Fort Louisbourg. In August 1758, at the height of the Seven Years' War, a British fleet took control of the settlement (and the entire island) and promptly took to deporting those French settlers that they could find, this being fully three years after the original Acadian Expulsion in Nova Scotia. British forces built Fort Amherst near the site of the abandoned Port La Joye settlement to protect the entrance to the harbour.

Charlottetown's early years

Charlottetown was selected as the site for the "royalty" of Queens County in the colonial survey of 1765 by Captain Samuel Holland of the Royal Engineers. Further surveys conducted between 1768-1771 established the street grid and public squares which can be seen in the city's historic district. The royalty, also chosen as the colonial capital, was named in honour of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.

On November 17, 1775 the colony's new capital was ransacked by Massachusetts-based privateers during the American Revolutionary War, during which the colonial seal, along with prisoners were taken.

Expansion and the "Golden Age" of sail

In 1793 land had been set aside by Governor Fanning on the western limits of the community for use by the "Administrator of Government" (the Governor), and as such it became known informally as "Fanning's Bank" or just "Fanning Bank".

In 1805, the local British garrison constructed another harbour defence at Fort Edward to the west of the capital's waterfront. The Prince Edward Battery was then relocated to this facility.

In 1835, "Government House" was constructed at Fanning Bank, intended as a residence for the colony's Governor. This building is now used as the official residence for the Lieutenant Governor).

Between 1843 and 1847, a new legislature building was constructed in the community. Named "Province House", the completion of this structure was an important milestone in the history of the capital and it is still in use today as the provincial legislature and is currently the second-oldest legislative seat in Canada.

On April 17, 1855, Charlottetown was incorporated as a town, holding its first council meeting on August 11 that year. The community had 6,500 residents at the time of incorporation.

Between September 1-7, 1864, Charlottetown hosted what is now termed the Charlottetown Conference. Although many of the meetings and negotiations which would lead to Canadian Confederation were held in Province House, various social events spilled over into the surrounding community.

Prince Edward Island entered Confederation on July 1, 1873. This same day, the "Government House Farm" at Fanning Bank was designated a municipal park, named "Victoria Park" in honour of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Aside from being the seat of colonial government, the community came to be noted during the early 19th century for shipbuilding and its lumber industry as well as being a fishing port.

The decline of shipbuilding was superseded by August 1874 when the Prince Edward Island Railway opened its main line between Charlottetown and Summerside. The railway, along with the shipping industry, would continue to drive industrial development on the waterfront for several decades to come.

In 1885 the municipality saw its status upgraded to become a city.

Development into today's community

Religion played a central role in the development of Charlottetown's institutions with Protestant and Roman Catholic schools (Queen Charlotte High School vs. Birchwood High School), hospitals (Prince Edward Hospital vs. Charlottetown Hospital), and post-secondary institutions (Prince of Wales College vs. St. Dunstan's University) respectively.

As with most communities in North America, the automobile shaped Charlottetown's development in the latter half of the 20th century, when outlying farms in rural areas of Brighton, Spring Park, and Parkdale saw increased housing developments. The Charlottetown airfield in the nearby rural community of Sherwood was upgraded as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and operated for the duration of World War II as RCAF Station Charlottetown, in conjunction with RCAF Station Mount Pleasant and RCAF Station Summerside. After the war the airfield was designated Charlottetown Airport. Further post-war development saw residential properties continue to expand in adjacent outlying areas, particularly in the neighbouring farming communities of Sherwood, West Royalty, and East Royalty.

To commemorate the centennial of the Charlottetown Conference, the 10 provinces and federal government contributed to a national monument to the "Fathers of Confederation." The Confederation Centre of the Arts, which opened in 1964, is a gift to the residents of Prince Edward Island, and contains a public library, nationally-renowned art gallery, and a mainstage theatre which has played to the Charlottetown Festival every summer since.

In the 1960s new public schools were constructed in the community and in 1969 the city became home to the amalgamated University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), located on the campus of the former St. Dunstan's University. Together with the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food's Charlottetown Experimental Farm (also known as Ravenwood Farm), these properties comprise a large green space surrounded by the city. The Prince of Wales College downtown campus became part of a new provincial community college system named Holland College, in honour of the island's famous surveyor.

In 1982 the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, named after Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, was opened, followed in 1983 when the national headquarters of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs was moved to Charlottetown as part of a nation-wide federal government decentralization programme. In 1986, UPEI saw further expansion with the opening of the Atlantic Veterinary College.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Charlottetown witnessed increased commercial office and retail development which saw a waterfront hotel and numerous apartment complexes as well as shopping centres being built. In the 1990s, abandoned railway and industrial lands on the waterfront were transformed into parks and cultural attractions.

In keeping with its heritage cityscape, and due to the lack of adequate bedrock in the area, Charlottetown limits buildings to a maximum height of six storeys.

Demographics

According to the mid-2001 census, the City of Charlottetown had 32,245 residents of whom 45.8 per cent were male and 54.2 per cent were female. Children under five accounted for approximately 4.9 per cent of the resident population of Charlottetown. This compares with 5.6 per cent in Prince Edward Island, and 5.6 per cent for Canada overall.

In mid-2001, 16.4 per cent of the resident population in Charlottetown were of retirement age (65 and over for males and females) compared with 13.2 per cent in Canada, therefore, the median age is 38.8 years of age comparing to 37.6 years of age for all of Canada.

In the five years between 1996 and 2001, the population of Charlottetown fell by 0.9 per cent, compared with an increase of 0.5 per cent for Prince Edward Island as a whole. Population density of Charlottetown averaged 727.3 people per square kilometre, compared with an average of 23.8, for Prince Edward Island altogether.

The Charlottetown census agglomeration area (CA) is comprised of Charlottetown and the neighbouring towns of Stratford and Cornwall, as well as adjoining rural areas of central-eastern Queens County. At the time of the census in May 2001, the estimated resident poopulation for the CA was 58,358 people over an area measuring 823.39 square kilometres, compared with a resident population in the province of Prince Edward Island of 135,294 people.

Racial & Religious Profile

• White: 97.5% (mostly British Isles, French, Dutch, German, and Italian)
• Black: 0.3% (mostly those who are of Caribbean origin)
• Arab: 0.2%
• Chinese: 0.2%

The community is also home to a (proportionately) large Assyrian/Lebanese community.

According to the 2001 Statistics Canada, more than nine out of ten inhabitants of the Charlottetown metropolitan self-identified as Christian. This breaks down to 91.7% Christian (46.0% Roman Catholic, 42.6% Protestant, and 3.0% other Christian mostly Orthodox), 7.3% stating no religion, and minor religions than make less than 1.0% includes Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish.

Media

Radio:

• CFCY - 630 CFCY - (630 KHz)
• CIMN - 700 CIMN - (700 KHz)
• CHTN - 720 CHTN - (720 KHz)
• CBAF-29 - Radio Canada - (88.1 MHz)
• CHLQ - Magic 93 - (93.1 MHz)
• CBCT - CBC Radio 1 - (96.1 MHz)
• CBCH - CBC Radio 2 - (104.7 MHz)

Television:

• CBAFT-5 - SRC
• CBCT 13 - CBC
• CKCW-1 - CTV
• CIHF-14 - Global

Cable

• Island Cable (EastLink)

Newspapers

• The Buzz (independent arts/entertainment)
• The Cadre (UPEI student paper)
• The Guardian (Transcontinental Media)

Municipal government

The city's municipal government is structured around a council comprised of a mayor and 10 councillors elected using the ward system; there is currently a discussion about electing councillors at large.

External links

• City of Charlottetown - municipal website
• Visit Charlottetown - tourism website

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