Province House in Charlottetown, above -- Tourism Prince Edward Island/John Sylvester

CHARLOTTETOWN -- Tamara Hickey, star of CTV's legal drama The Associates, has a new role. She is a Toronto reporter covering the birth of Canada at the $8 million Founders Hall in Charlottetown.

The actor, born in Halifax but raised in Prince Edward Island, describes via video screens, headsets and other 21st century aids, that first 1864 conference on the island which led to the creation of Canada.

In the role, she first appears skeptical. In 1864, she wouldn't have been alone. Islanders were indifferent. There was the Slaymaker and Nichols Olympic Circus in town, for the first time in six years. Everybody was much more interested in that.

That included the island's government, which ignored the arrival of the future fathers of confederation in the Queen Victoria. W.H. Pope, the provincial secretary, was the only one on hand to welcome them. He rowed out to the ship.

Spirits and seafood

But as Hickey found (and visitors discover through their headsets) the mood quickly changed -- mainly because of the mix of the ship's vast supply of spirits and Champagne (no doubt at the insistence of Sir John A.) and the island's oysters and other seafood.

The new Founders Hall is a large brick, transformed former railroad engine building on Charlottetown's waterfront. Its upper storey is McAssey's restaurant, featuring Canadian wines and foods, including those famous Malpeque oysters. McAssey was P.E.I.'s first railroad engineer.

There is also a gift emporium named -- of course -- the Canadian eh? There, visitors buy all-Canadian mementoes.

But before that, they will go through Canada from 1864 to the present day, walking a time travel tunnel to the first of three theatres, one of which is built into a replica of the Victoria's hull.

The Hall of Delegates has life-sized statues of the 1864 delegates, chatting more about the many banquets they got through than politics.

Founders Hall is history-without-tears. There is a Canada trivia game, which although created by leading historians, is a spoof on Jeopardy. There are fireworks exploding from a giant birthday cake.

Of 32 zones, one shows Upper Canada delegates boarding a Montreal train to the conference, another later political bargaining in Montreal and London before a confederation deal was cut.

The Hall of Provinces' films and commentaries lead to modern times. Props for these include a gold mine shaft for the Yukon, a railway tunnel for B.C., an actual TV appearance of Joey Smallwood for Newfoundland.

One nation

By now even reporter Hickey has become sold on the idea of one nation. And if not then by the final Canada Today Theatre's celebratory finale.

The Confederation Players, a band of costumed bilingual young Canadian actors, were dressed as Fathers and Ladies of Confederation at the opening ceremonies last year.

Throughout Charlottetown's summers they lead hour-long tours, telling stories along the waterfront, of merchants and mansions, and take in Sir John A's pub and brewery.

Founders Hall gives P.E.I. visitors a new look at their national history. "Our Island Home" introduces them to the smallest province immediately they are off the nine-mile Confederation Bridge from the mainland.

Among the shops, information centre and parkland of Gateway Village, it too uses modern technology to inform.

A large stylized lobster trap frames the screen on which videos about lobstering itself are shown. There are exhibits on Irish moss-gathering (it's in everything from ice cream to latex paint), step-dancing and potatoes (P.E.I. exports to 40 countries).

But nothing shows us how far we have evolved since 1984 like a photo display of wet and freezing islanders crossing to the mainland in their iceboats. Sometimes they took 12 hours to do so. It took me 12 minutes, dry in a car, over the bridge.