Unlike probably everyone else on this blog, I’ve been to Georgetown. It’s a sweet little east-coast PEI town, with a population of a few hundred. Therein lies the problem.

I’ve said repeatedly in the context of real-estate discussions that a house is not an asset; it is a liability. Maintenance costs for any building are considerable, and become substantially moreso to the extent they are located in a hot or a cold climate.

Many colleges and universities will finally discover this phenomenon within the next quarter century as their monumental build-outs of the last twenty years begin to require maintenance funds they will not have available. Especially since on the basis of demographice 2011 will be their peak enrollment year.

PEI’s core problem is that it’s attempting to be a “province” with a population smaller than that of Lawrence, Kansas. Of course the province couldn’t do anything about the church in Georgetown.

All that said, PEI is an absolutely fantastic place to holiday, especially since they opened that bridge to the mainland almost a decade ago. This is the land of ‘Anne of Green Gables.’ There is some fantastic golf, and if you enjoy biking there’s a wonderful 170 km trail across the province, well dotted the B&Bs; for overnight stays.

And if you enjoy shellfish, most of the mussels you find in North American markets come from PEI, where they’re farmed in the numerous bays and estuaries. If you like mussels, imagine biking alongside the bay where they’re raised, and then stopping for a break at a family establishment serving a rather large steaming bowl of mussels gathered that morning, in a sherry broth, with homemade bread and a glass of white wine ... for 5 bucks.

So, it won’t save the church, but it will be one of the most memorable and down-to-earth vacations of your life. My mother’s family are from across the strait in Nova Scotia, but as great a place as Nova Scotia is for a vacation, PEI is truly one of the hidden gems in North America and well worth the trip.

And they grow great potatoes!  My mother’s family was from PEI (though she was born in the US) and our family plot is in Charlottetown.  Whenever anybody dies in my family they get hauled up to Charlottetown and buried there.

There’s a schmaltzy old song about the Irish immigrant on his death bed that contains the lines:

By his side a priest was standing
As in blessing raised his hand.
“Tell me Father, ere I leave you,
Will my soul pass through Ireland?”

Whether or not my relatives ever make it to heaven, they definitely pass through PEI which is a close second.