P.E.I. taxi driver pinpoints homelands of his passengers

After asking his passengers where they're going,Charlottetown taxi driver Arnold Bagnall asks them where they're from and says it's the answers that make his job interesting.

P.E.I. cabbie pinpoints passengers who have moved to the Island from distant lands

7 years ago

Duration 0:55

P.E.I. cabbie pinpoints passengers who have moved to the Island from distant lands

Bagnall has a way to keep track of the answers people give him. He found a globe at a dollar store, and carries pins for people to mark where they are from.

"Hard to imagine how many people from around the world found little P.E.I. and came here," he said.

'Kindaneat for people to put a pin in'

Bagnall began his conversation starter last October, and already more than 150 passengers have pinned their homelands to his little globe.

"This gentleman here was talking about working in a lot of different places. I said, 'Where are you originally from?' He showed me he was from Chile. He works at the Delta [Prince Edward Hotel]," he recalled.

"There are small islands right off Madagascar and these people came here, they're going to Holland College."

Bagnall's globetrotters include people from the Philippines and China, and a young man from Russia who's working at a call centre.

'It's just amazing'

Bagnall said his globe is one illustration of how international imigration has changed the face of Prince Edward Island.

He thinks if he was pinning his globe on P.E.I. ten years ago, it would be a different story.

"I think it would take quite a long, long time to get this many on it," he said.

"Way back when I was going to high school, there was only one family in the whole community that was from somewhere else," he said. "Today, on every corner you see somebody that's probably from some other country, or some other origin it's just amazing."

• MORE P.E.I. NEWS | Dundas pig scramble cancelled
• MORE P.E.I. NEWS | Why a P.E.I. chef ditched her menu to focus on handpies