It’s hard to imagine that two islands in one region of Canada could be as dissimilar as Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. PEI is tiny, fertile, temperate, and well adapted to tourism. Newfoundland is sprawling, barren, subarctic, and outside of a few carefully cultivated enclaves, remarkably underdeveloped from a tourist’s point of view. These two books reflect those differences.

Discover Prince Edward Island is a neat little tour guide, designed to direct visitors to the beaches, museums, lobster suppers, craft shops, hiking trails, and aquatic adventures that abound in the province. Divided into six geographic sections, the guide gives a quick synopsis of points of interest, noting prices, wheelchair accessibility, availability of campgrounds, and attractions that are suitable for families with children. At the end of each section, the area’s lighthouses are described, complete with road directions and notes on their history. Each entry is illustrated with a photo. The guide will direct tourists to places and activities they might otherwise overlook, such as bike rentals, fine restaurants, a Dutch Gouda factory, a preserve-making company, and many out-of-the-way beaches frequented by locals. This very useful book gives an accurate picture of PEI as a nice place to visit – a tourist-friendly, civil, pretty place.

Newfoundland can be overwhelmingly beautiful or devastating in its severity, but it is rarely so vapid as to be called pretty, and Rannie Gillis’s book is quite another kettle of fish than Discover Prince Edward Island. This is Not the Mainland is not a tour guide. It describes the author’s personal experiences touring around Newfoundland on a large motorcycle over more than 30 summers. Many of his adventures, for example, sailing on the replica of John Cabot’s ship in 1997 or being taken out to see whales and porpoises by friendly locals, cannot easily be repeated by tourists. The book also suffers significant omissions. For example, Gillis and his companions drive within spitting distance of the Cape St. Mary’s bird sanctuary and actually set foot on Cape Spear, yet he makes no effort to describe either of these places. Often, he seems more interested in describing how local people react to his motorcycle than creating a portrait of Newfoundland. Bay de Verde is a striking outport, located on a narrow neck of rock jutting out into Conception Bay, a place that still retains a strong sense of what a working fishing village looked like in its heyday. Gillis devotes his chapter on this town to his conversation with the crab plant owner, and a whale-watching adventure in this man’s private boat, giving the community itself less than a sentence of description.

Some information provided is downright inaccurate. For example, Gillis states that the Avalon Peninsula was once part of Europe. In fact, as any reader of Newfoundland and Labrador Traveller’s Guide to the Geology will know, the landmass that the Avalon detached from 400 million years ago is now part of Northern Africa. Gillis occasionally gives bits of offbeat, captivating history, such as the story of the girl from Fogo who befriended a future king of France. A few activities are described in enough detail for visitors to repeat, such as hiking the Tablelands in Gros Morne National Park and visiting the Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows. But this book cannot be used as a guide to travel in Newfoundland. It is simply too subjective and incomplete. It does, however, create an accurate picture of Newfoundland beyond the Trans-Canada Highway, where people are kind and generous even though their communities are unequipped to deal with outsiders.

Perhaps without meaning to, these two books do give a vivid sense of the differences between a vacation in PEI and one in Newfoundland. Discover Prince Edward Island,/I> suggests a pleasant holiday where the activities and services are geared to tourists. This is Not the Mainland speaks of a place where you find yourself at the end of a gravel road, face to face with a moose, an iceberg for a backdrop, a day’s drive from the nearest restaurant. Travellers should divide themselves accordingly.