'Fresh air, salt sea breezes': Welcoming visitors to P.E.I., 1941 style

A new copy of the 1941 edition of Prince Edward Island's tourism guide is shedding light on how the province marketed itself to tourists, and how those tourists reacted to it.

The guide was aimed largely at Americans. With Europe embroiled in war and the Atlantic thick with U-boats, Americans, who were not yet in the war, were looking for new places to spend their vacations.

"We have always had it in our heads in tourism that we are going to be the Mecca for wealthy Americans looking for fresh air, salt sea breezes, and an escape from urban anxiety," said UPEI historian Ed MacDonald.

"[From the] 1850s right through to the present we're selling the same thing. We're selling an escape from the stresses, the anxieties, of an urban, industrial world."

With visits to England not possible, the Island marketed its English-style landscape to American visitors.

Used copy

What makes this new copy of the tourism guide unusual is that it comes back to the Island through members of the family that actually used it in 1941.

The copy has notes from the visiting couple, so MacDonald can see how tourists were reacting to the Island's marketing efforts.

MacDonald's lecture on the guide is at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the faculty lounge, Main Building at UPEI.

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