PRESERVING OUR WETLANDS

(The Sad Saga of Gilles Arsenault) 

I was born and raised in downtown Wellington in the house my grandfather built in 1914 on a wetland beside the Ellis River, and I lived there with my young family until 1990. Much of Wellington lies on what is now defined in the law as either “wetland” or watercourse “buffer zone”. In the early years of European settlement, the village was known as “Quagmire”. Residents voted in 1862 to change the name in honour of the Duke of Wellington, war hero and Prime Minister of Great Britain, no doubt to make the area more attractive to potential settlers.

I remember watching as the village’s sewer system was installed along Mill Rd. in the early 1960s. A cross-section of the trench showed several layers below the asphalt: gravel, shale, logs laid out as a corduroy road and, just above the black muck that marked the original ground level, spruce and fir branches with their needles still intact! The trenches filled with water almost as soon as they were dug. I once hit water at 40 inches when digging a post hole in my yard!

My grandfather kept a few cows on a swampy pasture on the opposite side of the Ellis from where his house stood. He’d walk them across the river every day to be milked. Since the 1960s, a house has stood on that spot on dry ground, raised four feet or so thanks to hundreds of truckloads of fill. Old Mills Park stands on the site of the former Barlow Mills. Old photos show that the dam built across the Ellis to power the mills is the only thing that kept the mill yard relatively dry.

And Wellington is not the only Island municipality to have been built on wetland. Any that lie along a river or on salt water have filled in marshes and wetlands to build wharves, roads, houses and businesses. Three centuries ago, my Acadian ancestors installed dikes to drain marshes and create arable land to help feed their families.

The recent controversy around the issuing of a permit by verbal approval for a change in a development permit granted under the Environmental Protection Act Watercourse and Wetland Protection Regulations to a Summerside golf course has caused me to reflect on my own experiences with preserving wetlands both as public servant and private citizen.

I served in a support role to the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship in the mid-1990s. The 16 members, under the able leadership of the late Elmer MacDonald, spent much of their time debating issues around water and the protection of watercourses and wetlands. There is a direct connection between the Round Table’s recommendations and the rules in place today.

Arriving at the recommendations was not easy, as members, particularly those who were farmers, had a much different view. To them, water was not a public resource, it “went with the land”, meaning it was a right guaranteed by the deed. They believed the deed granted them the right to draw whatever groundwater they needed to irrigate their crops, cultivate to the edge of a stream or wetland, water their cattle in a stream, and fill in a wet area to make farming the land easier.

Thankfully, we’ve learned a few lessons since then and the regulatory framework now in place has been administered and tested in court. Staff of the Department of Environment refer to Wetland Inventory maps when reviewing an application for a permit to change the use of a wetland or watercourse buffer. They walk the area to determine where the wetland and watercourse boundaries lie.

The Wetland Conservation Policy states that where developments are proposed on or adjacent to a wetland, mitigation must come first:

1. Avoidance: Development proposals will avoid wetlands. In cases where wetlands would be infringed upon, wetlands will be avoided or alternate sites chosen.

2. Minimization: In the rare case where, after all avoidance options are exhausted and impacts on the wetland are unavoidable, potential negative impacts on the wetland will be minimized to the extent possible.

3. Compensation: The developer (proponent) will compensate for any and all loss of wetland area, function and value resulting from development.

Anyone familiar with the area north of MacKenzie Drive and south of the Summerside Golf Club course knows it’s very low land. The lower sections of the original farms south of the Linkletter Road ran to the shore of Summerside Harbour. While they may have been cleared once, 1935 aerial photos of the area show a mixture of pasture that had already been abandoned and wet forest running to the shore. The construction of MacKenzie Drive and the proposed hotel and resort have interrupted natural drainage patterns, making inland areas even wetter. The area outlined in blue from the 1935 aerial photo corresponds roughly to the area being developed.

That government and the developer tried to find a way around the Regulations by invoking the “Compensation” clause strikes me as kind of fishy. The developer had to have deep pockets to pay over $400,000 in compensation, and a not insignificant amount of political “pull” to receive permission to destroy several acres of wetland in direct contravention of the Policy and Regulations. Yet even that was not enough, as we’ve learned recently from the sad saga of Gilles Arsenault.

Not satisfied that his staff had done their duty to uphold the Policy and Regulations, the then-Minister consented in a meeting with the developer to their request to “tweak” the wetland development agreement. That he got caught because his Deputy Minister blew the whistle is a good thing since he is surely not the first nor would he be the last to bend or break government’s own rules. The agreement may have been “verbal” but it was enough to get dozers and backhoes working away and carving up a wetland.

As if that wasn’t enough, the then-Minister put the developer in touch with a non-incorporated organization in his riding that would be only too happy to receive a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 for watershed improvement work. While he claims there was no quid pro quo, many find that hard to believe, and the truth will come out eventually. The so-called Évangéline area watershed improvement group is not recognized by the PEI Watershed Alliance, the provincial entity that oversees local groups, including the Harmony and Area Watersheds Enhancement Group Inc. the former Minister should have known this and that it would make the developer’s donation look even more suspect.

I watched the April 3 episode of a podcast called “Because Life Is Local”, hosted by Paul MacNeill, publisher of the Eastern Graphic and one of the best home-grown journalists we have. He interviewed former Minister of Environment, Stephen Myers, about the development in question. Myers said basically that what his successor did broke the important rule of including senior staff in meetings such as the one between the former Minister and the golf course developer. He also stated that the then-Minister should have known there are ways to support local watershed improvement initiatives through existing Department programs. He implied it was yet another example of the former Minister’s carelessness and poor judgement.

Wetlands and watercourse buffers must be preserved and protected against development. I’ve been on the Board of the Winter River - Tracadie Bay Watershed Association for the past 13 years. Like so many who serve on the 25 local watershed associations across the Island, I care about the environment and want to see the rules followed so that we can hang on to what we have. I trust those in power to uphold the law.

As an Acadian whose mother tongue is French, I suffered a second disappointment when Gilles Arsenault was removed from Cabinet and the PC Caucus.

We have not had a French-speaking Minister since Léonce Bernard in 1991, a quarter century ago! And we must go back another quarter century to the time of Henry Wedge in 1966 to find another one! M. Arsenault was certainly well qualified for the positions he held. The francophone community rejoiced at his appointment, and we had high hopes that he would make the best of the special opportunity he was given. To see him mired in a public controversy where his personal integrity is questioned affects us all. He’s one of us but, through his carelessness, he has disappointed us all.

Many francophones do not appreciate how important it is for our community to be represented at the Cabinet table where government decisions are made. Being a Minister is a heavy responsibility, for sure, but it also provides an opportunity to deal with long-standing issues of interest to us. A minister can influence what happens in other departments because he’s in direct and frequent contact with the Premier and other ministers. An MLA does not have that advantage, certainly not one who is no longer a member of Caucus.

Arsenault says he will continue to represent the people of Évangéline-Miscouche, but what does that really mean? He has no research or administrative staff. Unlike Liberal and Green MLAs, he’s not guaranteed time during Question Period. And, perhaps most importantly, will any Minister return the phone calls of an exiled MLA? Through all of this, he remains oblivious to the damage he’s caused and maintains that he has been falsely accused and did nothing wrong. Time will tell.

March 28, 2026, was a sad day for all Island francophones and for those who continue to fight to preserve the health of our wetlands and watercourses. I cannot put into words how disappointed I am that this has happened.

PRÉSERVER NOS BASSES TERRES

(La triste saga de Gilles Arsenault) 

Je suis né et j’ai grandi au cœur du village de Wellington, dans la maison que mon grand-père avait bâtie en 1914 sur une basse terre en bordure de la rivière Ellis ; j’y ai vécu avec ma jeune famille jusqu’en 1990. Une grande partie du territoire de Wellington repose sur ce que la loi définit aujourd’hui soit comme une « zone humide », soit comme une « zone tampon » de cours d’eau. Au tout début de la colonisation européenne, le village était connu sous le nom de « Quagmire » (Bourbier). En 1862, les résidents votèrent pour en changer le nom en l’honneur du duc de Wellington, héros de guerre et Premier ministre de Grande-Bretagne, sans doute dans le but de rendre la région plus attrayante aux yeux de colons potentiels.

Je me souviens avoir observé l'installation du système d'égouts du village le long de Mill Road, au début des années 1960. Une coupe transversale de la tranchée révélait plusieurs couches sous l'asphalte : du gravier, du « shale », des troncs d'arbres disposés en chemin de rondins et, juste au-dessus de la boue noire qui marquait le niveau original du sol, des branches d'épinette et de sapin dont les aiguilles étaient encore intactes ! Les tranchées se remplissaient d'eau presque aussitôt qu'elles étaient creusées. Il m'est même arrivé de tomber sur de l'eau à une profondeur d’à peine 40 pouces en creusant un trou de poteau dans la cour chez-nous !

Mon grand-père élevait quelques vaches dans un pâturage marécageux situé de l'autre côté de la rivière Ellis, face à sa maison. Chaque jour, il leur faisait traverser la rivière à pied pour les traire. Depuis les années 1960, une maison s'élève à cet endroit, sur un sol asséché et surélevé d'environ quatre pieds grâce à des centaines de chargements de terre. Le parc Old Mills occupe l'emplacement des anciens moulins Barlow. De vieilles photographies indiquent que le barrage construit à travers la rivière Ellis pour alimenter les moulins était le seul élément permettant de maintenir la cour devant les moulins relativement au sec.

Et Wellington n'est pas la seule municipalité de l'Île à avoir été bâtie sur des basses terres. Toutes celles qui sont situées le long d'une rivière ou en bordure d'eau salée ont rempli de terre, de gravier et de roche des marais et des basses terres pour y construire des quais, des routes, des maisons et des commerces. Il y a trois siècles, mes ancêtres acadiens ont érigé des digues pour drainer les marais et créer des terres arables afin de subvenir aux besoins de leurs familles. Ceux de la génération de mon père appelaient les endroits bas, mal drainé et non cultivable des « bas-fonds », un terme rarement entendu de nos jours.

La récente controverse entourant la délivrance, par simple approbation verbale, d'une modification à un permis d'aménagement, accordé en vertu du Règlement sur la protection des cours d'eau et des milieux humides de la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement à un terrain de golf de Summerside, m'a amené à réfléchir à mes propres expériences en matière de préservation des zones humides, tant en ma qualité de fonctionnaire que de simple citoyen.

Au milieu des années 1990, j'ai occupé un rôle de soutien auprès de la Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship. Les 16 membres, œuvrant sous l’habile direction du regretté Elmer MacDonald, ont consacré une grande partie de leur temps à débattre des questions relatives à l'eau ainsi qu'à la protection des cours d'eau et des basses terres. Il existe un lien direct entre les recommandations formulées par la Table ronde et les règles actuellement en vigueur.

Parvenir à ces recommandations ne fut pas chose facile, car les membres, et tout particulièrement ceux issus du milieu agricole, nourrissaient une vision bien différente de la question. À leurs yeux, l'eau ne constituait pas une ressource publique ; elle était plutôt considérée comme un droit garanti par le titre de propriété. Ils estimaient, en effet, que ce titre leur conférait le droit de puiser dans les eaux souterraines toute la quantité nécessaire à l'irrigation de leurs cultures, de cultiver leurs terres jusqu'en bordure d'un cours d'eau ou d'une zone humide, d'abreuver leur bétail directement dans un ruisseau, et de drainer une basse terre afin de faciliter l'exploitation agricole du terrain.

Heureusement, nous avons tiré quelques leçons depuis ces années-là, et le cadre réglementaire désormais en place a été mis en œuvre et éprouvé devant les tribunaux. Les agents du ministère de l'Environnement consultent les cartes de l'Inventaire des basses terres lorsqu'ils examinent une demande de permis visant à modifier l'affectation d'une zone humide ou d'une zone tampon de cours d'eau. Ils effectuent une inspection sur le terrain afin de déterminer l'emplacement exact des limites du bas-fond et du cours d'eau.

La Politique de conservation des milieux humides stipule que, lorsque des projets d'aménagement sont proposés sur une basse terre ou à proximité immédiate de celle-ci, les mesures d'atténuation doivent être appliquées selon l'ordre de priorité suivant :

1. Évitement : Les projets d'aménagement doivent éviter les milieux humides. Dans les cas où un projet empiéterait sur une basse terre, celui-ci devra être évité ou un autre site devra être choisi.

2. Minimisation : Dans les rares cas où, une fois toutes les options d'évitement épuisées, les impacts sur la basse terre s'avèrent inévitables, les impacts négatifs potentiels devront être minimisés dans la mesure du possible.

3. Compensation : Le promoteur (auteur du projet) devra compenser toute perte de superficie, de fonctionnalité ou de valeur de la basse terre résultant du projet d'aménagement.

Quiconque connaît la zone située au nord de MacKenzie Drive et au sud du parcours du Summerside Golf Club sait qu'il s'agit de terres très basses et mal drainées. Les parties inférieures des fermes originales situées au sud de Linkletter Road s'étendaient jusqu'au rivage du havre de Summerside. Bien qu'elles aient pu être défrichées par le passé, des photographies aériennes de la région datant de 1935 révèlent un mélange de pâturages déjà abandonnés et de forêts humides s'étendant jusqu'au bord de l'eau. La construction de MacKenzie Drive, ainsi que le projet d'hôtel et de complexe touristique, auront perturbé les schémas de drainage naturels, rendant les zones intérieures encore plus humides. La zone délimitée en bleu sur la photographie aérienne de 1935 correspond approximativement à la zone en cours de développement.

Le fait que le gouvernement et le promoteur aient tenté de contourner la réglementation en invoquant la clause de « compensation » me semble pour le moins louche. Le promoteur devait disposer de moyens financiers considérables pour verser plus de 400 000 $ en compensation, ainsi que d'une influence politique non négligeable pour obtenir l'autorisation de détruire plusieurs acres de basses terres, en violation directe des politiques et règlements en vigueur. Pourtant, même cela n'a pas suffi, comme nous l'avons appris récemment à travers la triste saga de Gilles Arsenault.

Insatisfait que ses propres fonctionnaires aient accomplit leur devoir en faisant respecter les politiques et règlements, l’ancien ministre aurait consenti, lors d'une réunion avec le promoteur, à accéder à leur demande de « remanier » l'accord relatif à l'aménagement des baissières. Le fait qu'il ait été pris la main dans le sac, grâce à la dénonciation de son sous-ministre, est une bonne chose. Il n'est assurément ni le premier, ni ne sera-t-il le dernier à contourner ou à enfreindre les règles établies par le gouvernement lui-même. Cet accord avait beau être « verbal », il a suffi à mettre en branle les bulldozers et les backhoes, qui se sont alors attelés à défigurer ce terrain humide.

Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, l’ancien ministre a mis le promoteur en contact avec une organisation non-incorporée de sa circonscription, laquelle serait plus qu'heureuse de recevoir une subvention sans conditions de 100 000 $ pour des travaux d'amélioration d’un bassin versant. Bien qu'il prétende qu'il n'y a eu aucune contrepartie, beaucoup ont du mal à le croire, et la vérité finira par sortir. Le soi-disant groupe d'amélioration du bassin versant de la région d'Évangéline n'est pas reconnu par l'Alliance des bassins versants de l'Î.-P.-É. (PEI Watershed Alliance), l'entité provinciale qui supervise les groupes locaux, y compris le Harmony and Area Watersheds Enhancement Group Inc. L’ancien ministre aurait dû le savoir, tout comme il aurait dû savoir que cela rendrait le don du promoteur encore plus suspect.

J'ai écouté l'épisode du 3 avril d'un podcast intitulé « Because Life Is Local », animé par Paul MacNeill, éditeur de l'Eastern Graphic et l'un de nos meilleurs journalistes locaux. Il y a interviewé l'ancien ministre de l'Environnement, Stephen Myers, au sujet du développement en question. Myers a déclaré essentiellement que les agissements de son successeur enfreignaient une règle fondamentale, à savoir l'obligation d'inclure des cadres supérieurs dans des réunions telles que celle qui a eu lieu entre l’ancien ministre et le promoteur du terrain de golf. Il a également affirmé que l’ancien ministre aurait dû savoir qu'il existe des moyens de soutenir les initiatives locales d'amélioration des bassins versants par l'entremise des programmes existants du ministère. Il a laissé entendre qu'il s'agissait là d'un nouvel exemple de la négligence et du manque de jugement de l’ancien ministre.

Les basses terres et les zones tampons riverains doivent être préservées et protégées contre le développement. Je siège au conseil d'administration de la Winter River - Tracadie Bay Watershed Association depuis 13 ans. À l'instar de tant d'autres personnes bénévoles au sein des 25 associations locales de bassins versants réparties à travers l'Île, j'ai à cœur la protection de l'environnement et je souhaite que les règles soient respectées afin que nous puissions préserver ce patrimoine que nous possédons. Je fais confiance aux personnes au pouvoir pour faire respecter la loi.

En tant qu’Acadien dont la langue maternelle est le français, j’ai subi une seconde déception lorsque Gilles Arsenault a été écarté du Conseil des ministres et du caucus progressiste-conservateur.

Nous n’avons pas eu de ministre francophone depuis Léonce Bernard en 1991, soit il y a un quart de siècle ! Et il nous faut remonter encore d'un quart de siècle, à l'époque de Henry Wedge, en 1966, pour en trouver un autre ! M. Arsenault était assurément bien qualifié pour les postes qu’il a occupés. La communauté francophone s’était réjouie de sa nomination, et nous avions bon espoir qu’il tirerait le meilleur parti de l’occasion privilégiée qui lui était offerte. Le voir embourbé dans une controverse publique où son intégrité personnelle est remise en question nous touche tous. Il est l’un des nôtres, mais, par son imprudence, il nous a tous déçus.

Beaucoup de francophones ne saisissent pas à quel point il est important pour notre communauté d’être représentée à la table du Conseil des ministres, là où sont prises les décisions gouvernementales. Être ministre est certes une lourde responsabilité, mais cela offre également l’occasion de s’attaquer à des enjeux de longue date qui nous tiennent à cœur. Un ministre peut influencer le cours des choses avec d’autres ministères, car il entretient des contacts directs et fréquents avec le premier ministre et ses collègues ministres. Un député ne bénéficie pas de cet avantage ; certainement pas un député qui ne fait plus partie du caucus.

M. Arsenault affirme qu’il continuera de représenter les citoyens d’Évangéline-Miscouche. Mais qu’est-ce que cela signifie réellement ? Il ne dispose d’aucune équipe de recherche ni de personnel administratif. Contrairement aux députés des partis Libéral et Vert, il n’a aucune garantie de temps de parole durant la période des questions à l’Assemblée législative. Et, fait peut-être encore plus important, y aura-t-il un seul ministre qui retournera les appels d’un député exilé ? À travers tout cela, il semble inconscient des dommages qu’il a causés et maintient qu’il a été faussement accusé et qu’il n’a commis aucune faute. Le temps le dira.

Le 28 mars 2026 fut une journée triste pour tous les francophones de l’Île, ainsi que pour celles et ceux qui continuent de lutter pour préserver la santé de nos basses terres et de nos cours d’eau. Les mots me manquent pour exprimer à quel point je suis déçu que cette situation se soit produite.

 

 

ARUBA

Our stock response to the many questions and comments we received before heading South was: “We only have so many good years left and we won’t let one man decide where we go or how we spend them.”

The border crossing guard at Calais checked our passports, did a casual walkaround of our car, asked us the standard questions, and told us to “Have a good time!” No photos, no fingerprints, no third degree!

Our plan was to take four days to reach our destination in Fort Lauderdale, rather than the usual three. We stayed the first night in Fishkill, NY, and the second in Asheboro, NC. For our third night, we stayed in a hotel in the old part of Savannah, GA, one of our favourite American cities. Arriving there early afternoon, we settled in and took a 6K walk through the many beautiful parks and the downtown area. It was a beautiful day for February 12, sunny and 16C.

In three days on the road, we went from February to June, not a bad bargain! It being a long weekend – Valentine’s Day, Daytona 500 and President’s Day – traffic was heavy on I-95, and we reached our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale around suppertime.

JetBlue flew us from Ft. Lauderdale to Aruba and we picked up our car at the airport. Rentals are very hard to come by and quite expensive here. After a few wrong turns, we found our lodgings for the next two weeks, Naïma Cottage, settled in and went to the supermarket for some grub. Traffic here is crazy. It reminded me of Guadeloupe: too many cars and not enough island!

A nearby rooster was kind enough to remind us when it was morning, something we’ve become used to in our Caribbean travels. . This guy is the most handsome rooster I’ve ever seen and very popular with the ladies. The day greeted us with a heavy rainstorm, a fairly rare occurrence on this island which has to desalinate its drinking water because there’s so little groundwater to be had.

Aruba is officially a “constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands”, quite the mouthful. The island, home to approximately 125,000 people, is 20 kilometers long and 10 kilometers across at its widest point, about one-thirtieth of our island’s land area, and it lies just off the coast of Venezuela. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, it forms the ABC island group. Other Dutch possessions in the Caribbean include Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba.

The economy is dominated by two main industries: tourism and tourism, with maybe a bit of  offshore banking thrown in. Aruba has one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean region, a low unemployment rate and is classified as a high-income economy. Its main trading partners are Colombia, the United States, Venezuela, and the Netherlands.

Although we hadn’t planned it that way, we happened to be here during Carnival, the big celebration before Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent. Serendipity has struck us before: the swim from Rottnest Island to Fremantle in Western Australia, religious processions in Piraeus, Greece, and Cadiz, Spain and, last October, the No-Day parade in Chora, Naxos. Because there’s a strong Latino population here, Carnival is a big deal. The parade is lined with families and corporate groups, each one with its own shelter against the hot sun. People bring food and drinks and generally have a good time. The parade rivalled anything we’d seen elsewhere in our travels, as good as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. The costumes and the music were incredible!

On our second full day in Aruba, we linked up with friends Joan and Richard Birt. It’s their third year on Aruba and they know their way around well, so we asked them to be our tour guides for the day. We started with a visit to the California lighthouse, named after the SS California, a steamship that sank nearby in 1891. We didn’t climb to the top but had a very nice view of both coasts from the western tip of the island.

Next, we stopped in at Aruba Aloe, an impressive facility that produces a full range of aloe products. Our tour guide explained the whole process from the aloe plant to finished goods, everything from soap to suntan lotion. We were surprised to learn that only 5 acres remain in production on the whole island, all located next to the plant. Our third stop of the day was Hooiberg, known locally as Haystack Mountain owing to its distinctive shape. To get to the top, we had to climb about 600 steps, but the views were well worth the effort.

After a light lunch at our place in Paradera, we visited the Casibari Rock Formation, one of two we’d see during the day, the other being at Ayo. According to ChatGPT, both formations are made up of granite boulders stacked in unusual formations and weathered by wind, heat and rain. A few of them reminded me of Fred Flintstone and Barnie Rubble’s houses. The site at Ayo contains petroglyphs (rock drawings) believed to have been made by the indigenous Arawak people about 1,000 years ago.

We drove to the wilder northeast coast to visit the ruins of a gold smelter called Bushiribana that operated in the late 1800s during the brief Aruba gold rush. From there, we continued eastward along the coast to visit the natural bridge, a huge natural limestone arch carved by the sea. We met dozens of quads loaded with tourists, having a great time bouncing along the gravel trails while eating more dust than they may have bargained for. Finally, back at the Birt residence, we put on our swimsuits and walked to the nearby beach called Boca Catalina for a refreshing dip. The water temperature was a toasty 27C, the perfect antidote for tired muscles. Eight stops in one day, quite the accomplishment for old people!

We’d heard that Baby Beach was one of Aruba’s nicest, so we drove to the southeast tip of the island and settled into our chairs for some sun and relaxation. It’s called “Baby Beach” because it borders a shallow protected lagoon, ideal for small children and inexperienced swimmers. There are few resorts on this end of the Island and not much to do in the nearby town of San Nicholas, Aruba’s second-largest settlement, home to 15,000 islanders and about half the size of Oranjestad. We stopped there for something to drink on our way back to Paradera and took pictures of the beautiful murals that adorn many of the downtown buildings.

When I received my combined COVID-flu shot in October, the pharmacist told me that the flu component might not protect me against a new strain of the virus. Boy, was he right! It hit me hard on our fourth day on Aruba, and lasted several days. No fever to speak of but there wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t hurt, especially my upper back between the shoulder blades. Elva did some shopping in Oranjestad while I stayed close to our apartment. 

While we were having breakfast one morning, this beautiful bird, a bananaquit, stopped by for a feed of nectar from the hibiscus flower next to our table. How do I know it was a bananaquit? Easy! I right-clicked on the photo on my laptop, clicked on “Ask Copilot”, and typed “What kind of bird is this?”. So then I asked about the cactus and the flower; the cactus is an organ-pipe cactus and the flower is a pink hibiscus. Technology is amazing!

On another day, we met up with Joan and Richard at their comfortable apartment in Malmok and were treated to a delicious lunch. We walked to the nearby beach, and Joan, Richard and I went snorkeling for the best part of an hour. We saw many different types of fish, notably parrot fish, four-eyed butterflyfish, angelfish, trumpetfish, a poisonous lionfish, and a sea turtle. While the corals have pretty well disappeared due to heavy foot and boat traffic, it was still nice to get into the warm ocean and just float along aimlessly looking at another world.

Elva and I decided to tour the main resort areas and nearby beaches, starting with the most developed one, Palm Beach. It’s a beautiful beach, for sure, and offers all the amenities for a family vacation, but it’s really not our cup of tea. The street that runs parallel to the beach is lined with restaurants and boutiques, making it far too “Americanized” for our tastes.

Eagle Beach was next on our list. Lying next to Palm Beach, it’s much more relaxed, and reminded us of the best beaches on our island. The sand is beautiful and the water warm. It’s the perfect place to go for a dip. I took a walk in the direction of Oranjestad, going as far as the neighbouring beach, Divi. Like Palm Beach, Divi is lined with condos and hotels. While people-watching is fun on any beach, in all our visits to Arubian beaches, I didn’t see one man in a thong, something I’m ever thankful for!

On one of our last days on Aruba, we took a guided tour of the WEB plant, a combined electrical generating and desalination facility that provides most of the island’s electricity and all of its drinking water. Aruba has no groundwater. Early settlers relied on rainwater but, when the population began to expand and the tourists showed up in the early twentieth century, desalination was the only solution.

The plant takes in water from beach wells and removes the salt using a process called reverse osmosis. About 10% of WEB’s electricity is needed to power the desalination plant, and the rest is distributed to islanders. Most of the power is generated from heavy and light crude oil and the utility is expanding its solar and wind generating capacity. It’s always interesting to learn how others deal with problems that would seem insurmountable to us, given that we have plentiful groundwater and are able to buy our electricity from New Brunswick.

Aruba has many attractive features to offer the visiting tourist: consistently warm weather, beautiful beaches, friendly people, good restaurants, and nice resorts. A few years ago, we visited eight Caribbean island countries on the same trip: Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. The theme for that adventure was to travel and eat like the locals. We stayed in a variety of locations, sometimes in the capital, sometimes not. The one thing we never needed was a car; we rode with the locals in 15-passenger vans for $2 a trip, and they took us everywhere people lived.

In Aruba, the public bus system runs on one route only, the main road that follows the southern coast past all the resorts and through the capital, Oranjestad. There is no bus service inland where we stayed, so we had to rent a car to get around. Rental cars are ubiquitous on the island, they’re hard to get, and they’re very expensive. Taxis are ridiculously expensive and there is no ride-share option. Without access to local bus service, Arubans must have their own cars, and this makes for major traffic tie-ups during the morning and afternoon rush hours. One smart thing they’ve done is to forego traffic lights in favour of roundabouts. But the two-lane versions have a curb between lanes, making navigating through them challenging for the first-timer.

While we loved our quiet and secluded oasis in Naïma, it offered no cell service, and the wifi connection and TV were iffy until our hostess, Ana, had a new router installed. Battling the flu for four days, I kept busy with work and the New York Times Sunday Crossword. And since Elva and I are not the resort types, Aruba is not a choice location. But for those wishing to get away from it all in a friendly and welcoming place that features great weather and the modern amenities not offered on many Caribbean islands, Aruba would be a very sound choice.

I give my head a shake sometimes and wonder how I got here. It seems like only yesterday that I was picking bottles out of the ditches in Wellington, gathering enough to buy myself a chocolate bar at the Co-op. It’s been a great ride so far!