On the front page of this morning’s newspaper was a story about a new ferry arriving to fill in for the MV Holiday Island, which will be out of service for an indefinite period of time following an engine room fire a couple of weeks ago.

And here’s the front page of the same publication 75 years ago to the day, what looks to be a special section celebrating the arrival of the new MV Abegweit ferry, a vessel so mythologized and beloved by Islanders that a set of doors from the ship currently feature in an exhibition about the PEI tourism trade at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown.

When I was a child, the Holiday Island and sister ship, MV Vacationland, were sometimes referred to as the “hot dog boats” because the Abegweit (almost always just called The Abby) had a lovely dining room, while the two smaller summer-only ships only had snack bars and were not as luxuriously equipped. Everyone wanted to catch The Abby!