Launch of the Master's - Prince Edward Island

Salutation Cove, Prince Edward Island - September 2023

It's January, 2024. A new year and a fresh page!

COVID made me rethink a LOT of things, including my scholastic endeavours. I had always wanted to do a Master's Degree but the timing wasn't right. And then, I realized over COVID, the timing WAS right.

I'm now a Master's student at the University of Prince Edward Island in Island Studies.

From the UPEI website:

The Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) at the University of Prince Edward Island is a unique, interdisciplinary, and policy-driven graduate program that critiques islands on their own terms. We welcome students from around the world with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and diverse degrees, or with professional workplace experience in the public, private, or resource sectors.

Our program offers a challenging opportunity for students with:

• a special interest in researching islands: their societies, economies, histories, cultures, governments, geographies, and environments

• an interest in public policy and administration

• career aspirations within local, regional, national, and international governmental and non-governmental organizations

• career aspirations in the private and resource sectors

• a desire for the challenge of graduate education

I am completely engaged in the program so far, and hope to begin writing my thesis in September 2024. My thesis topic is about my great-grandfather, Benjamin Isaac (B.I.) Rayner, and how he was essentially shunned in his community due to his playboy lifestyle and was eventually written out of the Silver Fox history on Prince Edward Island (even though he was a founder). I will discuss what happened to him and his family after the Silver Fox fur industry began to wane in the 1930s. Much is written about the industry and the Big Six Combine (of which B.I. and his father, Silas, were founders) leading up to 1911, when outsiders were let in on the incredibly lucrative business, but little is written about what happened to the Big Six Combine founding families afterward. We know little about Robert Oulton, Captain James Gordon, Frank Tuplin, and B.I. and Silas Rayner, yet most Islanders are aware of at least a few details from the well-documented life of Sir Charles Dalton, who was knighted for his philanthropic works and known for his career in politics as the Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island. It is important to right the balance of history by telling the story of B.I. and Silas Rayner, who were my relatives.

It is an amazing story, including a Royal bloodline, that would make an excellent Netflix series.

Benjamin Isaac Rayner, 1920s

Rayner family at their home in Alberton, 1920s

Rayner home in Alberton, Prince Edward Island, 1915-ish

One of many awards given to B.I. Rayner for his strain of silver foxes

I have been doing a lot of research on the Silver Fox industry and the Rayner family and I am confident that this thesis will be not only educational but eye-opening.

In the meantime, I am studying with students from all over the world, many of whom are half my age. It is fantastic. The exchange of ideas, the exposure to many different cultures- it's everything I had hoped for and more. My professor, Dr. Laurie Brinklow, is encouraging me think outside the box and I am. WAY outside the box, actually. One of my recent projects will involve poems and seaweed!

I did lose my shit during COVID but many things became clear and, for that, I am grateful.