Maritime Bluegrass

Before we tell you about the terrific music we heard at the 36th annual PEI Bluegrass Festival, we’d like to share a bit of history learned in the past few days. This will come back around to the Bluegrass festival we promise.

We’ve been 🏕️ near Souris for five days. Our campsite is perched on the cliff above a gorgeous red sand beach. Souris is pronounced ‘Surrey’ and gets it’s name from the French word for mouse. Grain farming and fishing were the local economy and the early farmers had a big mice problem. Much of the crop was lost until they eradicated the mice. Hence the name Souris.

Digging a little deeper, we came across a new theory that Souris is from a Mi’kmac word Sourisquois meaning saltwater men.

Either is plausible. Today, aquaculture and agrarian ways of life still dominate the island landscape.

The Bluegrass festival is held at the Dundas Ploughing Match and Agricultural Fairgrounds. Dundas is just down the road from Souris. This small town is inland and surrounded by farmland. You get a sense of the history just driving in to the fairgrounds.

The festival is an all weekend affair with camping on site. We went on Sunday for about 4 hours (the short day).

We really enjoyed the banjo picking and fiddling. Oh and the strawberry ice cream sundae was terrific. Local strawberries 😀

BlueRoad were our favourites. They played fast toe tapping songs and barely took a breath between songs. Their 40 minute set was amazing. These 5 guys were young and fun. All are a friend group from around Moncton. The banjo player is studying music at East Tennessee State University.

Three Harmonies were great too. Father, daughter, daughter’s boyfriend, father’s best friend. Adding in the banjo player from BlueRoad who’s filling in for their regular member.