The Bottle House of Prince Edward Island

Here are some shots from a place called "The Bottle House of PEI". Here's a bit of history:

Over 25 000 recycled bottles ingeniously cemented together to create the Bottle Houses, a must-see tourist attraction situated in Cap-Egmont, Prince Edward Island, Canada. They were built by the late Édouard T. Arsenault. He gave birth to these houses after having received a postcard of a glass castle from his daughter in 1979, an attraction she had visited on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. That same summer, he started collecting bottles from his community, mostly from a local restaurant, community dance halls, friends, relatives and neighbours.

He spent the winter in the basement of his home, cleaning bottles, removing labels and dreaming of his project. In the spring of 1980, at the age of 66, he began his construction, a mere hobby yet. As his six-gabled structure was taking form, visitors started coming in. Impressed by his work, they encouraged him to continue and to advertise it as a tourist attraction. And so, in 1981, the first Bottle House was open to the public.

From 1980 to the spring of 1984, he cleverly cemented over 25,000 bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours, into three fantasy-like buildings.

The site offers a multitude of angles for the photographer to capture the wonder of what an individual built out of recycled bottles. It is also truly an inspirational spot for anyons who cares for the environment.

Visit the website at: http://www.bottlehouses.com/ for more information!

Now on to the shots....

1st and 2nd shots-the first bottle house, outside and inside respectively
3rd and 4th shots-the second house, outside and inside
5th, 6th and 7th shots-the third house, outside and 2 inside shots
8th shot-a sculpture made out of bottles too! They had a beautiful garden to walk through as well (I'll include some of theses shots another time!)
9th shot-this is a huge bottle at the entrance to their property! Cool!

Lighthouses Pt. 2

As promised, here are some more lighthouse shots from PEI and NB:

1st Pic-North Point Lightstation -this one was found at the most northern tip of PEI

2nd Pic-Tignish Run Lighthouse-theres a nice beach here and cafe

3rd Pic-Indian Head Lighthouse (near Summerside)-this one was out in the water, but you could venture out on those rocks if you dare! We didn't! It was getting dark and the kids were back at the hotel, so we didn't stay long.

4th Pic-St. Stephen, NB-I'm not sure if this one was real or just for show!

5th Pic-Pendlebury Lighthouse-St Andrews, NB-It is being renovated at this time.

6th Pic-East Quoddy Head Lighthouse, Campobello Island, NB-Saw this while on the whale watch cruise!

Well, that's it for Lighthouses..not sure what I'll include next time--maybe some scenics and/or red beaches!

Have a great week!

Lighthouses of Prince Edward Island!

This trip down east saw us searching for and visiting lots of lighthouses (the kids groaned whenever we mentioned there was another one on the map!) I loved shooting them with my camera-- as you can see below, no two are alike and the sky ends up being different in all of them as well--depending on the weather that day (or should I say minute- as the weather is known to change quickly there).

These are a portion of the ones I shot in PEI-- from one end of the Island to the other. We even toured through a few of them as well..yep all the way to the top..the stairs really hurt my calves as they are fairly steep!!

1st pic-Victoria Seaport Lighthouse (a fairly small one)

2nd pic-Panmure Head Lighthouse (the beach nearby had the ninja crabs)

3rd pic-East Point Lighthouse (giftshop and cafe here too)

4th pic-Shipwreck Point Lighthouse (in the middle of nowhere and kind of plain looking!)

5th pic-Cape Egmont Lighthouse (love the sky and weather this day!)

6th pic-West Point Lightstation (& hotel-you could sleep in this one, but it was full when we were there!)

I'll add more next time with a couple from NB too!



Eagles!

As promised last week, I'm including some eagle pics that I took while on the boat cruise in New Brunswick. The captain stopped for quite awhile so everyone could get some good shots of these guys. The first pic below is that of a male and female. They were resting in the trees until they saw a school of mackerel and then they swooped down and caught a couple of them! Pretty cool watching them "fish" and then carrying off their lunch in their talons. Enjoy!

"Seal" of Approval!

On our way home from PEI, we stopped in St Andrews by the Sea to take a whale watching cruise in the Bay of Fundy..Yep, even after the last "scary" one, we wanted to attempt it! Well, maybe not all of us, but most of us! We went with the boatline called Quoddy Link Marine with a catamaran style boat and it was awesome..not at all scary!

We saw fin and minke whales, harbour porpoises, a basking shark, various birds as well as some seals, which I'm showing off today. Here are my favourite pics of them!

The first one is a grey seal, who seemed to be waving at us from his perch on the rock and the following pictures are all of harbour seals, who were very interested in watching us as well! Too cute!

Next post, I'll include my eagle pictures from this cruise!

Enjoy your week!

The Friendly Red Fox...

Here are some pics of a friendly little guy. He was hanging around the cars and people at the East Point Lighthouse we visited. He was with another fox who wasn't as friendly or brave! This one seemed to be looking for food. He let some people pet him, but I didn't get too close...didn't need to with my zoom lens! There were a few around the island that we saw in parks and in people's yards too. He sure was cute!! Here are my favourite shots of him!

Ninja Crabs?

Well, they aren't officially called Ninja crabs, its just what we called them. They are actually green crabs and are very aggressive. They would actually attack you if you got too close, so of course, we picked them up, poked them, etc. etc... Here are some shots of my family picking them up and one little guy waving his claws at us!

Anyway, we had another great holiday and can't believe it's over with already! I did get lots and lots of pictures...now I just have to go through them all. I've been tired and feeling crappy since I got home, thanks to my allergies (which didn't bother me in PEI--another good reason to move down east! LOL), so I haven't done too much since we got home Friday night!