Charlottetown

History

Early history (1720–1900)

The first European settlers in the area were French; personnel from Fortress Louisbourg founded a settlement in 1720 named Port La Joye on the southwestern part of the harbour opposite the present-day city. This settlement was led by Michel Haché-Gallant, who used his sloop to ferry Acadian settlers from Louisbourg.

During King George's War, the British had taken over Prince Edward Island. French officer Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de Ramezay attacked with 500 men at the Battle at Port-la-Joye, resulting in a British defeat and the capture or death of all involved British troops.

In August 1758, at the height of the French and Indian War, a British fleet took control of the settlement and the rest of the island, promptly deporting those French settlers that they could find in the Ile Saint-Jean Campaign (this being fully three years after the initial 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 was selected as the site for the county seat of Queens County in the colonial survey of 1764 by Captain Samuel Holland of the Royal Engineers. A year later, Charlottetown was made the colonial capital of St. John's Island. Further surveys conducted between 1768 and 1771 established the street grid and public squares which can be seen in the city's historic district. The town was named in honour of Queen Charlotte.

On November 17, 1775, during the American Revolution, the colony's new capital was ransacked by Massachusetts-based privateers in the Raid on Charlottetown. During the attack, the colonial seal was stolen and several prisoners, including Phillips Callbeck and Thomas Wright, were taken to Cambridge, Massachusetts and later released.

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". On November 29, 1798, St. John's Island was renamed to Prince Edward Island in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, who was the Commander-in-Chief, North America.

Modern history (1900–present)

Religion played a central role in the development of Charlottetown's institutions with non-denominational (i.e. Protestant) and Roman Catholic public schools (Catholic Queen Square, Notre Dame, and St Joseph's vs. Protestant West Kent and Prince Street), hospitals (Prince Edward Island Hospital vs. Charlottetown Hospital), and post-secondary institutions (Prince of Wales College vs. St. Dunstan's University) being instituted. St. Dunstan's was originally developed as a seminary for training priests, and the Maritime Christian College was founded in 1960 to train preachers for the Christian churches and churches of Christ in Prince Edward Island and the Maritime Provinces.

As with most communities in North America, the automobile shaped Charlottetown's development in the latter half of the twentieth 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. Charlottetown's shipyards were used extensively during World War II, being used for refits and upgrades to numerous Royal Canadian Navy warships. Further post-war development continued to expand residential properties in adjacent outlying areas, particularly in the neighbouring farming communities of Sherwood, West Royalty, and East Royalty.

In 1959, the suburban village of Spring Park was amalgamated into the city, extending the city's northern boundary from Kirkwood Drive to Hermitage Creek and included the campus of St. Dunstan's University.

To commemorate the centennial of the Charlottetown Conference, the ten provincial governments and the Government of Canada 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 are 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. The PEI Comprehensive Development Plan in the late 1960s greatly contributed to the expansion of the provincial government in Charlottetown for the next decade.

Geography

Charlottetown is situated on its namesake harbour, which is formed by the confluence of three rivers in the central part of the island's south shore. The harbour opens onto the Northumberland Strait. The city is roughly V-shaped (pointed to the south) and constrained by the North (Yorke) and the Hillsborough (East) Rivers to the west and east.

Climate

Charlottetown has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) moderated partially by Prince Edward Island's location in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Winters are somewhat milder than many inland cities at a similar latitude: the January average is −7.3 °C (18.9 °F), and lows reach −20 °C (−4 °F) or below on an average 5.8 days per season. However, the coastal position means that winter precipitation, more often as snow, is frequent and at times heavy: the seasonal snow average is 284.8 cm (112 in). Spring warming is gradual due to the ocean waters still being cold. Summers are mild, again due to the same maritime moderation: the July high is 23.6 °C (74.5 °F). Precipitation averages 1,135.7 mm (45 in) per year, with the greatest amounts falling in late fall and winter.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Charlottetown was 36.7 °C (98 °F) on August 19, 1935. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −32.8 °C (−27 °F) on January 29, 1877.

Cityscape

Downtown Charlottetown includes the city's historic five hundred 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, Sherwood 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 experimental crop research station is located. The Agriculture Canada research station farm is the last remnant of the Queens Royalty common pasture lands and creates a large greenspace in the centre of the city, north of downtown. The development of the township of Queens Royalty, with its 5-hectare (12-acre) estates surveyed during the 18th and 19th centuries along a north–south axis forced early road networks into a grid.

21st-century Charlottetown landscape is dominated by urban development along the waterfront areas, suburban development to the west, north and east, as well as the airport to the north. Commercial development, aside from the central business district, is concentrated along several road corridors:

University Avenue/Malpeque Road

North River Road/Lower Malpeque Road

St. Peter's Road

Mount Edward Road

Kensington Road

The downtown core is augmented by several feeder streets:

Queen Street

Water Street

Grafton Street

Neighbourhoods

Charlottetown has the following neighbourhoods which were one-time independent municipalities:

Downtown Charlottetown

Brighton

Spring Park

Parkdale

Sherwood (including Falconwood)

East Royalty (including Hillsborough Park)

West Royalty (including Lewis Point)

Winsloe

The original municipal boundary between Charlottetown and the common area of the township of Queens Royalty was the northern edge of the original five hundred lots along present-day Euston Street. This boundary was extended north to Allen Street and Kirkwood Drive during the early twentieth century, taking in part of the rural community of Brighton west of the downtown. The village of Spring Park was amalgamated into the city in 1959, extending the city's boundary north to Hermitage Creek, which also formed the southern boundary of the village of West Royalty. Development filled in most vacant land in the Brighton and Spring Park neighbourhoods by the 1980s. Municipal amalgamation in 1996 saw the outlying independent municipalities of Parkdale (town), Sherwood, East Royalty, West Royalty and Winsloe (villages) merged into a larger city of Charlottetown at the same time as rural communities east and west of the city were amalgamated to form the towns of Stratford and Cornwall respectively.

A green belt is in place around the northern fringe of the municipal boundary, although it is poorly enforced by the provincial government, leading to suburban sprawl.

Culture

Attractions

The city's streetscape with a centrally planned downtown core containing many Victorian-era houses and buildings is an attraction, as well as the waterfront redevelopment project in recent decades which has seen walking trails and parks developed on former industrial lands. A new cruise ship terminal was opened by the port authority in September 2007 which, proponents hope, will make the city a more attractive destination for the growing number of vessels operating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

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 the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. The Charlottetown Festival itself is headlined by Canada's most popular and longest-running musical, Anne of Green Gables - The Musical, an adaptation of Island author Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel. Several other small theatres and galleries can be found immediately surrounding the Confederation centre including the Mac (MacKenzie theatre), the Arts Guild, and Pilar Shepard gallery.

There are 11 National Historic Sites of Canada located in Charlottetown, including Province House and the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

Sports

Charlottetown has numerous parks and playing fields for soccer, baseball, softball, football, rugby, and field hockey. Cricket also has been gaining popularity after building a ground and a cricket pitch at Tea hill park in Stratford. There are also many outdoor tennis courts, recreational trails, and running tracks. Most public schools in the city have gymnasiums available for public use outside of school hours and there are community-owned and operated hockey arenas and swimming pools, as well as several privately operated fitness centres.

Amateur varsity team sports are prevalent for males and females in the city's two senior high schools, Colonel Gray and Charlottetown Rural, as well as the University of Prince Edward Island's varsity teams (the UPEI Panthers) through the institution's affiliation with Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Holland College also has varsity teams, the Holland Hurricanes.

There is one junior hockey team in the community: the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League's Charlottetown Islanders. The city was home to the Island Storm of the now-defunct National Basketball League of Canada from 2013 to 2020.

Other notable sporting events held by Charlottetown include:

1991 Canada Winter Games

2009 Canada Summer Games (Co-hosted with Summerside)

Demographics

In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Charlottetown had a population of 38,809 living in 17,184 of its 18,364 total private dwellings, a change of 7.5% from its 2016 population of 36,094. With a land area of 44.27 km2 (17.09 sq mi), it had a population density of 876.6/km2 (2,270.5/sq mi) in 2021.

In the 2021 census, children under five account for approximately 3.9% of the resident population of Charlottetown. This compares with 4.4% in Prince Edward Island, and 5.0% for Canada overall. 21.0% of the resident population in Charlottetown are of retirement age compared with 21.2% in Prince Edward Island and 19.0% in Canada. The median age is 40.8 years of age compared to 44.0 years of age for Prince Edward Island and 41.6 years of age for all of Canada.

There are 17,193 total private dwellings in Charlottetown with an occupancy rate of 93.6%. The median value of a private dwelling is $200,284 compared to $341,556 nationally. The population density is 814.1 per square kilometre.

The 2021 census reported that immigrants (individuals born outside Canada) comprise 5,245 persons or 13.9% of the total population of Charlottetown. Of the total immigrant population, the top countries of origin were China (1,030 persons or 19.6%), India (530 persons or 10.1%), Vietnam (410 persons or 7.8%), Syria (345 persons or 6.6%), Philippines (310 persons or 5.9%), United States (280 persons or 5.3%), United Kingdom (245 persons or 4.7%), Lebanon (115 persons or 2.2%), Iran (110 persons or 2.1%), and Jamaica (95 persons or 1.8%).

Ethnicity

Charlottetown is approximately 76.2% white, 21.8% visible minorities and 2.0% Indigenous as of 2021. The largest visible minority groups in Charlottetown are South Asian (6.4%), Chinese (5.0%), Black (2.9%), Arab (2.3%), and Southeast Asian (2.0%).

Language

78.6% of Charlottetown residents spoke English as their first language. Other common mother tongues are Chinese languages (4.3%), Punjabi (2.0%) French (1.8%), Arabic (1.7%), and Vietnamese (1.2%). 1.8% of residents listed both English and a non-official language as mother tongues.

Religion

According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Charlottetown included:

Christianity (21,665 persons or 57.6%)

Irreligion (12,425 persons or 33.0%)

Islam (1,265 persons or 3.4%)

Hinduism (860 persons or 2.3%)

Sikhism (635 persons or 1.7%)

Buddhism (350 persons or 0.9%)

Judaism (70 persons or 0.2%)

Indigenous Spirituality (15 persons or <0.1%)

Other (310 persons or 0.8%)

As of 2021, 57.6% of residents are Christians, down from 75.4% in 2011. 28.9% were Catholic, 16.9% were Protestant, 7.2% were Christian n.o.s, and 4.7% were other Christian denominations and Christian-related traditions. Non-religious or secular people are 33.0% of the population, up from 20.8% in 2011. There are also significant populations of Muslims (3.4%) and Sikhs (1.7%).

Economy

Charlottetown's economy is dominated by the public sector. The provincial, federal, and municipal levels of government are significant employers in the central part of Queens County, as are the health care and secondary and post-secondary education sectors. Technology companies have increased their share of the city's workforce, however the actual numbers are quite small once call-centres are excluded. Other significant economic activities include light manufacturing, such as chemicals, bio-technology, and machining.

Government

The city's municipal government is structured around a council with a mayor and ten councillors elected using the ward system. The current mayor of the city is Philip Brown.

Charlottetown has seven seats (out of 27) in the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. Some of these electoral districts occupy adjacent rural areas that are not within the city's boundaries.

The city has a single seat in the House of Commons; the current Member of Parliament is Sean Casey.

Transportation

Historically, Charlottetown was the centre of the province's railway network. Highway development in the latter part of the 20th century has resulted in the city being the focal point of several important routes in the province. Route 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, partially bisects the northern suburbs, linking with Riverside Drive, the Hillsborough River Bridge and the North River Causeway/Bridge on a limited-access arterial highway linking the city with the Confederation Bridge in the west and the Northumberland Ferries terminal in the east. Route 2, the province's main east–west highway intersects with Route 1 in the city.

Charlottetown Airport is the province's only airport with scheduled passenger airline service, serving 280,000 passengers per year.

Charlottetown Transit was founded in 2005 and offers 10 bus routes around town.

The absence of public transit for many decades in Charlottetown resulted in a dependence on personal use of automobiles, with municipal governments constructing three large above-ground parking garages in the city's historic district to house vehicles of downtown workers. The city also had a statistically higher proportion of taxis than the Canadian average as taxi service became a last-resort for many residents without access to a vehicle.

The Charlottetown Harbour Authority operates the city's commercial port and is currently expanding a marine terminal which was formerly operated by the federal government. Importation of gravel for construction and petroleum products are the main port activities.

Education

English public schooling (gr. K-12) in Charlottetown is provided by the Public Schools Branch. French public schooling (gr. K-12) in the city is provided by the Commission scolaire de langue française.

The city also has two independent schools: Immanuel Christian School and Grace Christian School.

Charlottetown is home to the University of Prince Edward Island. UPEI has programs in Arts, Education, Science, Business, Nursing and Engineering. The provincial university also houses the Atlantic Veterinary College.

Charlottetown is also home to several campuses of Holland College, the province's community college. In addition, there are various private training colleges in the city.