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P.E.I. Old Home week returns after two years hobbled by pandemic

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Shuttered in 2020 and with only limited events in 2021, P.E.I. Old Home Week has returned in full force for the first time since the pandemic began.

“Very, very excited to be able to do this event again,” said event manager Sandra Hodder-Acorn. “To bring people home to P.E.I., visitors and Island residents alike, and be able to see lots of smiling faces.”

An Island tradition since 1888, Old Home Week hosts an exhibition, midway, the Gold Cup Parade, and a full week of harness racing leading up to the Gold Cup and Saucer race.

The event wouldn’t be out of place in any rural community fair, albeit on a larger scale -- set up just outside of downtown Charlottetown, it’s a coming together of urban and rural.

That’s why the P.E.I. Department of Agriculture set up a booth.

“Probably not as much of the population involved in agriculture as there used to be, so we’d like to bring the farm to them here in the city,” said Fred Vanderkloet, manager of agriculture industry development. “Show them what agriculture is all about, and how their food is produced.”

There are plenty of activities for the kids here; digging for potatoes, a corn sandbox, a milking station, and a virtual reality horse ride.

Farmers from across the region come to Charlottetown for the show. It’s one of the major events in the Atlantic Canadian agriculture circuit.

“They’re on a different diet than the regular heifers would be, for the most part,” said Rianne Gaunce, a farmer who travelled from New Brunswick.

“We’ve been working with them to make sure they’re nice and trained, and quiet to work with, and, obviously, they’ve all had haircuts, they’re all clipped.”

That’s why some of the cows appear pink on camera, you can just see their skin because their hair is trimmed short.

Old Home Week runs all of next week, culminating in the Gold Cup Parade, the biggest parade this side of Montréal on Friday and the Gold Cup and Saucer harness race Saturday.

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