Outt The Panmure I Jerry and Helga Davies love to farm and keep horses like these unusual "curly"horses originating from the Mongolian steppes By Jim Cody ome people might find a degree of diffi- 1 culty doing a community profile of Pan- mure Island, because for most people, Panmure Island is an experience more than a community. This serene Island hamlet on the eastern coast of P.E.I , is year-round home to about 10 families, and due to its beach, friendly warmth and uncluttered beauty, its population swells most disproportionately during the good weather. The community is some 15 kilometres east of Monta¬ gue in Kings County. The closest gas station is in Stur¬ geon. There's "a" store in Murray Harbour North . "There's nothing here (in Panmure Island ) — just houses and beaches and the park," smiles resident Sun¬ day Campbell, who has just set up for an afternoon on the beach with representatives of four area families. They call it "the best beach on the Island," always an arguable point, but an opinion shared by many Islanders and tourists alike. Debby Steele, the other adult in a party comprised mainly of children, says while Panmure Island is somewhat out of the way, and not known by many tourists, "once they do know this beach, they will comeback." RARE AND GENTLE PLACE It is undoubtedly one of those rare and gentle spots in the world, posessing for some a spiritual quality in its se¬ renity. A cloudy or even rainy day on the beach at Pan¬ mure Island can still have its own magic. Generally pronounced "Pammure" Island "n"), the 800-acre community is no longer an isJai sea redefined it geographically by washing up a sa io the mainland and government followed up by t ing with the natural causeway with rock and soil I a highway onto the Island. Members of the Andrew MacDonald family» original Panmure Island settlers, establishing around 1805, apparently to harvest trees and sell to the British for shipbuilding. Eventually expert shipbuilders came to Kings County, realizing cheaper to build the boats here at the source oft ber. Places like Georgetown , Cardigan , Montagi Brudenell became centres for building some of 0 sailing vessels of the day — brigs and barques, stance, outlined pictoriafly in a book called W by Nicolas J. de Jong and Marven E. Moore . TRAVEL ON LOW TIDE The original settlers had to take their pigs ant across to and from the island at low tide or go t" Georgetown . More Panmure Island families, like the Cam; the Steeles, arrived after the turn of this centur) Gertrude Partridge is a relative newcomer, reti the community from Ottawa with her husband I But already she has become synonymous with H> munity, running federally and provincially for > Democratic Party, serving as a former preside!1