The PE Ledger wasn’t the community’s first newspaper, but is its longest-lasting and currently Prince Edward Island’s only online daily.
Throughout its history, The PE Ledger has documented the history of the province and county through news, sports and arts coverage. Its award-winning newsroom continues to offer readers the latest breaking news via its website, which attracts about 2.8 million pageviews each month.
The PE Ledger is owned by The Boring Media Company, Inc.
Prince Edward Island is one of eastern Canada’s maritime provinces, off New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The large island is marked by red-sand beaches, lighthouses, and fertile farmland, and is renowned for seafood like lobster and mussels. Charlottetown, the capital, is home to Victorian government buildings & the modern Confederation Centre of the Arts, with a theatre and art gallery.
The island has several informal names: “Garden of the Gulf”, referring to the pastoral scenery and lush agricultural lands throughout the province; and “Birthplace of Confederation” or “Cradle of Confederation”. This refers to the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 about confederation. But PEI did not join the Confederation until 1873, when it became the seventh Canadian province. Historically, PEI is one of Canada’s older European-Canadian settlements. Its population still reflects some of the earliest immigration to the country, with French, Scottish, Irish, and English surnames being dominant.
The island is known in the Mi’kmaq language of its historic indigenous occupants as Abegweit or Epekwitk, roughly translated as “land cradled in the waves”.
When the island was part of Acadia, originally settled by French colonists, its former French name was Île Saint-Jean (St. John’s Island). In French, the island is today called Île-du-Prince-Édouard.
As a result of the early French colonial name, Scots immigrants knew the island in Scottish Gaelic as Eilean a’ Phrionnsa (lit. “the Island of the Prince”, the local form of the longer ‘Eilean a’ Phrionnsa Iomhair/Eideard’) or Eilean Eòin for some Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, though not on PEI (literally, “John’s Island” in reference to the island’s former French name).
After the British took over the territory, in 1798 they named the island colony for Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (1767–1820), the fourth son of King George III. He later fathered the future Queen Victoria. Prince Edward has been called “Father of the Canadian Crown”.