Millennials, tourists drive popularity of P.E.I.'s 70-mile yard sale

In its 19 years, P.E.I.'s 70-Mile Yard Sale has never been so popular.

This year the sale, which snakes around southeastern P.E.I. from Wood Islands, through Murray Harbour and Murray River and back, including many side-roads from Cardigan to Caledonia andIona, has almost doubled the number of vendors.

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The unofficial sale, in reality, begins as soon as you exit the Hillsborough Bridge from Charlottetown heading east,but most of those sites aren't listed in the official booklet and don't pay the fee something that raises funds for things like, this year, painting the Wood Islands Lighthouse.

It's a real shame if some of this stuff does go to the landfill. Audrey Shillabeer

"It is an international event," boasts yard sale co-ordinator Audrey Shillabeer. "The ferries are full with people coming from away. I get phone calls from travel agencies in Ontario and Quebec and Massachusetts." Tourists have confirmed their attendance from as far away as Florida and Kentucky.

"And if you're coming from Florida, you're not just coming for the weekend," she notes.

That's important, explains Shillabeer, because tourists bring "new" dollars into the economy Islanders can only spend their money at one establishment or event, at the expense of another.

Shillabeer estimates 40 per cent of the approximately 40,000 people who usually visit the yard sale are tourists.

Many of the customers are also millennials, she believes, the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000swho are environmentally-conscious, love the chic and unique, are nesting in and collecting things for their newly-acquired spaces and love to get behind a cause.

"They're interested in that recycling, reusing," she smiles. "Where you can turn something that somebody might think is trash into a new piece of furniture or whatever."

Driven by Pinterest

"Pinterest ideas come true at the 70-Mile Yard Sale!" agrees Lesley Caseley with a laugh.

She's an administrator for P.E.I.'s Community Museum Association and has a love for all things vintage, and has "done" the yard sale for years, picking up items "with a little bit of history, a past."

Even so, it's a little surprising that the 30-year-old and her fiancee shopped for almost all the decor for their 2014 wedding at the 70-Mile Yard Sale.

"We got a lot of the ideas off Pinterest then sourced them ourselves," Caseley said, adding the weekend of searching was lots of fun.

Armed with a long list, they found vintage fruit crates, glass bottles for centrepieces, china dessert stands for their dessert table, vintage linens and doilies, and photo frames. They also dressed a photo booth in vintage furnishings to look like an old parlour, complete with old top hats and frilly gloves in which guests posed.

"And we kept a lot of it, because it's cool," she adds.

It's kind of a funny story

The couple's honeymoon was a 12-day tour of France, where they met a couple in their seventies from Florida. The Caseleys shared their wedding photos, along with the story of where all the props came from. The elderly couple, also yard sale enthusiasts, became the Caseley's fast friends and are now visiting them on P.E.I. for a guided tour of the 70-Mile Yard Sale.

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"A lot of my friends are going," to the yard sale, she said, noting people her age are looking for everything from baby clothes to hockey gear to home decor and things they can repurpose.

This year, Caseley shares, she's on the hunt for a living room rug and a coffee pod machine, as well as books to round out her collection of vintage Nancy Drew novels from the 1950's and '60's.

'Get the booklet'

For every person who complains yard sales are just full of garbage that hasn't made it to the curb, Shillabeer said there are young people on a budget who have an idea to clean things up and repurpose them.

"It's a real shame if some of this stuff does go to the landfill rather than be sent down the road," she said.

However, she's not a fan of pickers who take truckloads of antiques off the Island during the yard sale.

"I actually had one today ask me to set his route for him, and I said no. He needs to get the booklet and take a look himself," Shillabeer said, admitting that if sellers need the money, "there's not a lot we can do about it."

The yard sale also promotes the ferry from Wood Islands, P.E.I., to Caribou, Nova Scotia, which Shillabeer said is a vital resource to economic vitality in eastern P.E.I..

Find out more about the yard sale and download the booklet here.

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