This brief item in the January 16, 1925 Charlottetown Guardian made me smile. I would expect many Summersiders today would suspect they don’t often get a better deal than Charlottetown folks, but at least on the train in 1925 there was a benefit in coming from the western capital!
The region of PEI where I live is commonly referred to as Up West. It’s more Up Northwest, really, from the rest of the island, but as the main highway through our end of PEI, Route 2, has long been referred to as the Western Road because it starts from the western end of Summerside, we are west.
Some people in central PEI can take the “up” part too literally, as if you have to climb a steep mountain to get here. There is a notion – mostly apocryphal, but a little bit true, in my experience – that when you try to organize a meeting between people in my area and folks from Charlottetown, or even sometimes Summerside, you will hear “But it’s soooo far to go to Tyne Valley/O’Leary/Alberton/Tignish!”, as if the distance would be magically shorter for us to go to them.
Maybe someone at the PEI Railway knew of this magic directional difference, perhaps similar to a magnetic hill, and that prompted the cheaper west-to-east fare to the 1925 hockey game. Mistake? Mischief? Delightful whatever the reason.
In my experience, Hunter River is often suggested as a “halfway point” for meetings between people from Charlottetown and people from, say, Alberton. This, despite the distance from the west being approximately four times longer.
A rough look at the map shows that Slemon Park is a more just halfway point, though I expect people from Charlottetown would complain that it would be akin to driving “almost all the way there.”
You’re right, Slemon Park would make more sense. To be honest, the only time I’ve ever been a bit miffed at having to travel is when meetings are with people who can get their travel reimbursed and I’m a volunteer who has to pay their own way, but driving an EV and more video conferencing has mostly solved that.