About Prince County, PE

A large blue whale washed ashore in Nail Pond, PEI, in 1987, and was later transported and buried in the sand a short distance away. Now the University of British Columbia lead by Andrew Trites, is in the process of uncovering the giant whale to recover its skeleton to be displayed in a new museum on its campus. Students from the University of Prince Edward Island, and Holland College are helping in the effort. Scientists from UBC found the body of the blue whale quite perserved with the skin still wrapped around the blubber.

Canada does not have a blue whale skeleton on display and there are only 17 of them displayed around the world, of which, four in the United States.

Not even the biggest dinosaur could match the size of the giant blue whale. The whale's tongue is the size of an elephant, the heart is as big as a car, and a baby could crawl through its huge arteries. It is longer than 2-40 foot school buses placed end to end.

The public is welcome to come to the site of the buried blue whale and watch as the many volunteers uncover the magnificant animal. The whale should be fully uncovered by this Saturday (May 17, 2008).

The team includes three people whose sole job is sharpening knives. Then there is the tagger with some 1,000 tags for identifying the blue whale, the photographer for every big or small piece, andthe film crew from Discovery Channel that is following the whole project to the very end.The team brought a mammoth chain saw from British Columbia to help cut the skull in 2 pieces.That is required to get inside to clean it out and support it for transport.Once dug up, cut up and recorded, the whale parts will be packed into a container andtransported across Canada by rail, free of charge courtesy of CN Rail.

The goal is to display the skeleton by the fall of 2009 in an all-glass atrium above the stairs leading down to the underground Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia.

This is a tremendous co-opertive project between the 2 Canadian provinces of British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island, and will give PEI a new exciting exposure to its other Canadian provinces as well as to the world.

George Jordan, Owner/Broker, Red Soil Real Estate Inc., http://www.buysellpei.com

The CEO of APM Group says he paid the province approximately $630,000 for the former Holland College building in Summerside and is prepared to spend anywhere from $300,000 to $900,000 or more on remedial work.
"We don't take possession until all the T's are crossed and the I's dotted,'' Tim Banks stressed in a phone interview from Portland, Maine.
If a big chunk of the building is levelled the cost will rise toward the $900,000 threshold.
That's because of the extensive work needed to remove asbestos from the building's ceiling. If a large part of the building, including its roof can be salvaged, much smaller amounts of asbestos, such as the material around piping, will need to be removed, said Banks.
Many buildings on the Island - private, commercial and institutional - contain asbestos and aren't considered a health threat, he said.
Remedial work also includes removing an underground oil tank, said Banks.
But in the meantime nothing can be done until the transfer is completed.
The former Holland College building came up during Monday's monthly meeting of Summerside City Council, in which a number of councillors slammed the boarded-up, graffiti-covered building.
Banks agrees the building's appearance doesn't look very attractive, but it's not his fault, he said.
"They should go to the owner.''
The building, owned by the province, doesn't officially change hands until April 4.
Councillors wanted the property's new owner to take steps to re-develop the property, or at the very least to begin demolition of the structure.
There was uncertainty at the meeting whether Banks had taken possession.
Banks said APM was the driving force behind several major developments in the area, including Wal-Mart, the Granville Street Plaza, the Super Store, the new Canadian Tire and Northgate Apartments.
"We revitalized the Granville Street Plaza. We deliver, that's our track record. When we invest we do something with it.''
The 17.6-acre property has been subdivided for commercial and non-commercial use.
In an earlier interview Banks stated APM's plan for the property included a 60,000-square-foot building and another 5,500-square-foot structure in the adjacent parking lot.
The plan also included, at one time, 200 townhouses, since scaled back in the first phase.