CANADA BEAUTIFUL : PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

Prince Edward County, settled by British Loyalists, draws a new set of explorers.

An island roughly 30 miles across in Lake Ontario Price Edward County packs into a small space stunning beaches and small towns, wineries and a slew of new restaurants.

A mixture of the hip and historic, it offers a rare look at what makes Canada Canada. Some may confuse it with Price Edward Island, 800 miles to the east, If you're looking for Anne of Green Gables, she's not here.

You can hit many off the county's attractions by driving or biking across the island on the two-lane Route 33, known as the Loyalist Parkway Lined with some 40 archaeological sites and 125 listed heritage buildings, the road is itself a kind of historic artifact.

It's path follows that of a pioneer road laid down, beginning in 1798, to connect Toronto to the west and Kingston to the east.

Roads and lands were needed for the refugees, led by British soldiers loyal to George III, who had arrived, weary and penniless, after the American Revolution. To this day the county is demonstrably proud of its Loyalist  past.

The parkway enters the county in the northwest at Carrying Place, used as a portage and meeting spot for native tribes centuries before Europeans arrived. As the name implies, it bis where canoes were lifted and carried between the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario.

The French explorer  Samuel de Champlain stopped there in 1615, and it was also the site of the Gunshot Treaty of 1787, now commemorated with a small cairn, where the Misssissauga relinquished all land west to and including what would become Toronto.

A canal was dug in the 19th-century, severing the slim isthmus and turning the county into an island.

Driving south then east on the parkway, one comes to Sandbanks Provincial Park, billed as the largest fresh water barrier beach and dune system in the world.

It's a natural wonder with white stretches of white sand and dunes that that are five stories high, dappled green and blue water overlapping a gently sloping bottom.

The beaches are great for swimming, the dunes for exploring, with the infinite-looking vastness of Lake Ontario before you, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were at the ocean.

The honor and serving of this beautiful travel writing continues. The World Students Society thanks author Alexander Wooley.