Senator George W. Howlan was a 19th-century Prince Edward Island politician. In the early 1870s, Howlan grew interested in the idea of a railway tunnel under the Northumberland Strait. Public and political support peaked in the mid-1880s. However, with Howlan’s death in 1901 the idea as a serious prospect was also finished.

“Just as previous generations (of Islanders) had yearned for an end to the absentee landlords, the tunnel generation hungered for the day they no longer had to rely on the vagaries of weather and ice to get to the mainland. The tunnel idea became caught up with their future and their collective sense of self. For these reasons, the tunnel, almost as soon as it was given credence in 1885, entered the realm of Island mythology. Islanders addressed it with the passion reserved only for their most cherished political concepts. Once in this realm, nothing, be it financial constraint, political realism, or time itself, could ever completely destroy the dream.” - Boyde Beck