Out of the blue, Prince Edward Island was going green. In 1969, Premier Alex Campbell’s government of Canada’s smallest province had introduced the Comprehensive Development Plan, a pricey, 15-year federal-provincial agreement that would use top-down social and economic planning to pull the Island into the modern economy. It was the epitome of big-is-beautiful thinking. But by the mid-1970s, Campbell had begun preaching the diametrically opposite position: self-reliance, decentralization of capital and decision making, and even degrowth.
Key to this was an about-face on energy and environmental matters. Campbell rejected the subsidization of oil prices and had PEI opt out of partnering on New Brunswick’s new nuclear power plant. Drawing on EF Schumacher’s 1973 Small Is Beautiful, Campbell stated in a Montreal speech, “I am one who believes that small is not only beautiful but in the long run, more practicable.”1 A profile of Campbell in Canadian Magazine offered a full-page illustration of him as PEI’s jolly green giant.2
What had brought about Campbell’s conversion? There was the local backlash against the Development Plan, best personified in the rise of the Brothers & Sisters of Cornelius Howatt, a guerrilla political group calling for a return to the Island’s rural roots.3 There was the blossoming environmental philosophy of Campbell’s right-hand-man, Andy Wells, influenced by writers such as Lewis Mumford and E.F. Schumacher; Wells had the entire provincial cabinet watch a film on The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth.4
But above all, there was the OPEC oil crisis. When eleven Mideast oil-producing nations embargoed oil in the fall of 1973 and the price of oil shot up from $3 to $30 per barrel, Prince Edward Island was the most vulnerable of any province in Canada. Without fossil fuels of its own and relying entirely on oil-firing for electrical generation, PEI already had the highest energy prices in the country, and within a year, it was paying almost twice as much. Prince Edward Island had every reason – and maybe little choice – but to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels.
In 1975, the Campbell government announced that PEI would be embarking down a bold new path. It would reinvent itself as a model to the world on matters regarding renewable energy and resource self-sufficiency. Ask not what Canada can do for the Island, Campbell urged his fellow citizens, but rather what the Island can do for Canada and the world.[5]The first step was creation of an Institute of Man and Resources devoted to researching, developing, and demonstrating new environmental technologies and systems.[6] This all set the stage for 1976, which was to be the coming-out party for PEI’s environmental turn.
This week, we will offer posts that look back at two moments that define PEI’s Spirit of ‘76, fifty years later.
[Left] Cover of “Energy Days,” compiled & edited by Lynne Douglas & Martha Pratt, spring 1976. [Right] Close up of John Todd speaking to crowd at opening of PEI Ark, 1976 09 20. Photo courtesy of Hilda Maingay.
On Wednesday, we look back at Energy Days, a four-day hearing in April-May 1976 that brought national and international experts to the PEI legislature to discuss all things energy. We speak with one of the presenters, Amory Lovins, who would go on to be a co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute but who at that moment was a 28-year-old vunderkind about to become acclaimed for his promotion of a “soft energy path.” We also annotate a transcript of Lovins’ presentation about what Canada’s energy situation might be in 2025, fifty years later.
On Friday, we look back at the opening of the Ark on 20 September 1976. Developed by the Massachusetts-based New Alchemy Institute with the aid of the Canadian and PEI governments, the Ark was a “bioshelter” – simultaneously a place to experiment on and showcase integrated agricultural, aquaculture, and renewable energy systems, and also a single family home. Futuristic and domestic, ultramodern and back-to-the-land, the Ark captured the imagination like no other project of its day.[7] We speak with the Ark’s two architects, David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund, about their aspirations for the project and the rockier reality. We also include a series of photos from the Ark’s opening ceremony, complete with Prime Minister PE Trudeau’s arrival by helicopter – two, in fact.
[1] Alex Campbell, “The Politics of Power” speech to the Rotary Club of Montreal, 15 June 1976.
[2] In Harry Bruce, “The Gardener of the Gulf,” Canadian Magazine [Saturday insert to the Toronto Star], 4 April 1976.
[3] Harry Baglole and David Weale, Cornelius Howatt: Superstar! (1974).
[4] When Campbell’s father Thane had been PEI’s Premier in the 1930s, Wells’ father James had also been his right-hand-man.
[5] Charlottetown Guardian, 17 January 1975.
[6] Alan MacEachern, The Institute of Man & Resources: An Environmental Fable (Island Studies Press, 2003).
[7] Steven Mannell, Living Lightly on the Earth: Building an Ark for Prince Edward Island, 1974-76 (Dalhousie Architectural Press, 2018).
Alan MacEachern and Joshua MacFadyen
Latest posts by Alan MacEachern and Joshua MacFadyen (see all)
- PEI & The Spirit of ‘76 – pt.1 - September 14, 2026