About Alberton
The story that Alberton carries most proudly is one that even most Canadians don't know. In the early 1890s, two men from western Prince County — Robert Oulton and Charles Dalton — figured out that silver-phase red foxes could be successfully bred in captivity. This sounds modest until you understand what silver fox pelts were fetching in London in 1900: thousands of dollars each, at a time when a farm labourer earned perhaps $300 a year. The industry that followed transformed PEI's western communities. Families became millionaires. Silver fox farms spread across North America and then Europe. The pelt auctions in Charlottetown drew international buyers. Alberton was at the industry's centre, and the Alberton Museum preserves the artifacts of this remarkable chapter — breeding records, pelt samples, pen designs, the whole ecosystem of an agricultural innovation that changed the fur trade worldwide.
The town itself is the service centre for western Prince County — the hospital, the schools, the hardware store and grocery that surrounding farming communities depend on. Potato farming dominates the agricultural landscape, as it does across most of PEI, with red soil and careful crop rotation producing some of the continent's finest table and processing potatoes. The Confederation Trail runs through Alberton on the former railway corridor, providing cycling and walking connections to Summerside in one direction and Tignish in the other. The western shore's beaches — less famous than Cavendish but equally red-sanded and dramatically cliffed — are within easy reach.
Real estate values in Alberton are among the most accessible in PEI. The distance from Charlottetown and Summerside keeps prices well below those of the Greater Charlottetown market, and buyers who want genuine small-town Island character without tourist crowds find that western Prince County delivers exactly that. Jacques Cartier Provincial Park, near where the French explorer first set foot on PEI in 1534, is 30 kilometres away on the North Cape Peninsula.
Property Types
🏠 Town Homes
Older bungalows and two-storey homes in Alberton's established residential areas — generous lots, mature trees, genuine small-town character at prices that reflect western PEI's off-the-radar status.
🌾 Western Acreages
Rural residential properties and hobby farm acreages in western Prince County — land with genuine agricultural character, privacy, and spectacular western shore proximity.
🌊 Shore Properties
Northumberland Strait-facing properties on the western shore — less expensive than North Shore equivalents, red sand beaches without the summer crowds.