There are many ways to show respect.

And covering up a naked body would certainly be one of them - especially on such a cold and windy day as when the Olympic Torch Relay landed in Prince Edward Island.

For 35 years "The Flat River Maiden" has stood at the sweeping corner that takes cars on the Trans-Canada Highway flying past the Wilby home. Robert Wilby - sculptor, painter, musician - put his life-size naked sculpture out there with the idea that she might slow traffic down, and perhaps even persuade a few to drop in on the art gallery he runs with his sisters Roslynn and Susan.

They dressed her in a red blanket for the torch's passing. And then, from her bare arms, they tied two large Canadian flags that, with Roslynn's and Susan's help, billowed out like sails in the winds whipping along the Northumberland Strait.

The sisters also dressed in red, and they sang O Canada when the relay flew by - the three siblings somewhat surprised that it was being driven rather than carried. But then, as Roslynn pointed out, this is a vast country and, well, carrying it just isn't feasible if the flame hopes to reach Vancouver by February.

"It's a great idea," she said. "It will unite the country."

That, of course, remains to be seen. It is certain, however, that it unites those who gather to watch it carried or, as is often the case, fly down the Trans-Canada in a long convoy of flashing police lights and red and blue and white vehicles.

And it most assuredly affects, often deeply, those among the 12,000 who will be carrying it at those points where the caravan comes to a stop, the police lights spin and flash, and a few runners carry the flame to each other while those along the roadside politely applaud and, sometimes, loudly cheer.

The flame was brought onto the island Saturday afternoon by Mathew Caseley, a tall 21-year-old who was selected because he won a gold medal in the hammer throw at the 2009 Canada Games, which were held here in Prince Edward Island.

He carried it - in a reversal of the Jonah and the Whale story - out of the gaping jaws of the ferry Confederation.

It took a while to light the darn thing, what with the wind coming off the strait, and when it did it burst briefly like a barbecue that has been sprayed with lighter fluid. But eventually the flame calmed down and the young athlete raised his hand high and ran out of the darkened hull of the huge ship to the cheers of a rather spotty crowd.

He carried it down the ramp and onto the shores of his home province. They made him delay for a photo-op - nothing unusual in this relay - and it gave him time to think about what this meant and how it felt.

He was surprised to be here. Not just surprised to be chosen to be first, but surprised to find himself a star athlete, as he had always dreamed - yet never in a sport he'd barely even recognized.

Like most Canadian kids he had grown up playing hockey. He played a lot of sports, and was good at them all. But too many concussions meant it was time to find a sport where you're not always banging your head.

He tried basketball. He was tall, after all, and athletic, but "I didn't like that too much. So I tried track and field - and here I am."

It happened almost by accident. He was fine with track but a coach suggested that with his physique he might make a good hammer thrower. And he was instantly good: in less than two years the gold medal winner at the Canada Summer Games. "It was a dream come true," he says. "I didn't really expect it."

He stood on the podium and waited for them to place the gold medal around his neck, trying not to let it get to him, but when he looked out and saw his mother bawling he lost it too.

He certainly didn't expect to cry this day at the Wood Island ferry. After all, he was merely representing all the PEI athletes by doing this simple task of holding a flame in the air and walking and jogging it 300 paces to the next torch bearer.

But it still made him think about the Olympics. It made him think that someday, long after this flame reaches Vancouver for the Winter Games, perhaps he himself will represent Canada in the Olympics' Summer Games.

Why not? Two years ago he didn't even have a sport. Now he's a champion.

He slowed and waved to those who had come to take his picture. He talked to those who run along with the torch bearer, the security runners, the flame carrier, the one who carries the second torch for those times - and there are those times - when the torch fails to take a light or proves faulty.

He realized that he was the first to carry this flame and some 200 more Prince Edward Islanders will carry it before it reaches Confederation Bridge on Monday and is then sent off to the next province, New Brunswick, on its long journey through the Canadian winter.

Not a bad honour, he thought.

"Pretty cool, pretty cool," he kept saying. "Not really what I expected at all."

How so? he was asked.

It took a while to find the words, but what a word he found.

"It was more....epic than I expected."