"This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've always heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world. -- Anne of Green Gables
I fell in love with Prince Edward Island when I was about 10, reading about a little, freckle-faced redhead who came to live with an elderly couple there. The series of books that told of her adventures became one of my all-time favorites, and ever since I got old enough to know it was possible to actually visit places that I read about, it's been on my list of places to go.So it was that my two sisters -- Anne (with an e, of course), from Minnesota, and Joy, from St. Louis -- and I decided that PEI (as they usually call it) would be the place for our sisters' reunion this year. (They, too, are avid "Anne of Green Gables" fans.) We let Anne's husband, David, come along. He is not particularly a Green Gables aficionado, but he is, as Anne Shirley would say, a "kindred spirit" in other ways.
Going to PEI was something we have talked about for years. We found that we had picked the 125th anniversary of the birth of "Anne of Green Gables" author Lucy Maud Montgomery, and that seemed extra fortuitous.
PEI, the smallest of the Canadian provinces, is cradled between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Anne's Land runs along the North Shore, the area in and around Cavendish, the girlhood home of Montgomery.
Anne Shirley has always seemed so real to us that we got there almost expecting to find Avonlea, her home town in the books. But Cavendish will do. It is a rural area, filled with gently rolling farm fields where potato plants are blooming and huge hay rolls bask in the sun. Charming houses line winding roads. And, almost everywhere there's a view of the sea.
We were staying at the Barachoise Inn in nearby South Rustico, a restored 19th-century home complete with mansard roof and elegant staircase that made a nice central location for our explorations. Joy took one look at the inn and fell in love. "I have to move here and open an inn," she said. (Of course, that's what she also said when we went to Vermont. She has an innkeeper's soul.)
"Isn't a road an interesting thing, Lewis? " said Anne dreamily. "Not a straight road, but one with ends and kinks around which anything of beauty and surprise may be lurking. I've always loved bends in roads." -- Anne of Windy Poplars
Our first encounter with the Anne mystique was Dalvay-by-the-Sea, the elegant turn-of-the-century hotel that appeared in the television series based on the Anne books as the White Sands Hotel. One of the things we have always liked so much about Anne Shirley was her "scope for the imagination." And Dalvay definitely has scope. We could easily see ourselves sitting in the Adirondack chairs on the sweeping front lawn, looking out at the nearby shore and sipping tall glasses of lemonade, or taking walks along the silver beaches, gathering shells and watching the birds. "Next time!" we said, already knowing we would have to come back someday.
From here, it was easy to see what Anne meant when she said, "Look at that sea -- all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen."
But we didn't have time to linger. Cavendish called. In that town and others are four main sites and a couple of secondary ones that are associated with Montgomery and with Anne. "Yes, we have to visit every one," said Joy. To David's credit, he didn't groan once.
First came the site of L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish home. Maud, as she was known by family and friends, came to live with her maternal grandparents here when her mother died when Maud was only 21 months old. It was her home from 1876 to 1911, when she married and moved from the island.
The farmhouse and buildings are no longer standing, although the foundation of the house has been excavated. But it's easy to see how the fields, gardens, trees and lanes influenced her writing. The old apple tree that would have been outside her window remains. We walked through the woods to the original old post office, where Maud worked, and to the church she attended. Down another lane, past fields of daisies and a wooden fence, we found the cemetery where she is buried.
Cavendish was where her writing career got started. She wrote "Anne of Green Gables" here as well as three other novels, several short stories and many poems. Had it not been for these Cavendish years, she said later, she didn't think "Anne" would have been written. One thing that also helped was working in the post office, where she could quickly hide her rejected manuscripts as they came back. "Anne" was refused by several publishers before it was finally accepted by a company in Boston. She later wrote that she didn't think she could have borne the public humiliation if everyone had known. The people of Cavendish in those days were probably the pattern for the people of Avonlea.
It was at this site that L.M. Montgomery came alive for us. Before that, she had only been a name on the book cover. But here, she became very real. Be warned: There is a bookstore in a little log cabin here filled with wonderful treasures. Our first major stop, and already the budget was shot!
"Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this?" -- Anne of Green Gables
In real life, Green Gables was the farm home of David Jr. and Margaret Macneill, who were cousins of Montgomery's grandfather. "The truth of my description of it is attested by the fact that everyone has recognized it," she wrote.
Soon after "Anne" was published in 1908, people began coming to Cavendish in search of Green Gables. Despite the fact that it was fiction, enough inspiration was drawn from the real-life setting that people were satisfied by what they found. In 1937, the home was purchased by the Canadian government and made a part of Prince Edward Island National Park. The house and grounds have been restored and laid out according to descriptions in the novel.
An introductory video in the visitors center; exhibits in the barn; and the Butter Churn Cafe, featuring Montgomery's lemon squares, new moon pudding and mock cherry tarts, add to the ambience. The house is furnished with items from the 1890s, which was Anne's growing-up period.
"Now remember," said the park service guide at the home, "Anne was a fictional character. This wasn't really her home." But before long, she is lost in the story as well: Here is where Matthew slept, here is Anne's room. Such is the magic that you expect to look out the window and see Diana Barry's home across the way.
"Lover's Lane" out back leads us on a pleasant walk through the woods and ferns of the Balsam Hollow. Placards along the way feature quotes from Montgomery that reveal her love of nature -- another characteristic she shared with her Anne. A second walk takes us into the Haunted Woods -- not nearly as scary for us as they were for the little girls with big imaginations who played there in the book.
"Much of the beauty of the island is due to the vivid colour contrasts -- the rich red of the winding roads, the brilliant emerald of the uplands and meadows, the flowing sapphire of the encircling sea." -- "The Alpine Path"
Montgomery was born on Nov. 30, 1874, in the little town of New London, about six miles down the road from Cavendish and overlooking picturesque New London Harbour. Built in the mid-19th century, the house still stands and has been maintained in the style and fashion of the late 1800s.
Among the treasures here are the dress she wore in 1911 when she married the Rev. Ewan Macdonald and a collection of personal scrapbooks that reveal more of her life as a student, teacher and author. The room where she was born is under the eaves on the second floor and furnished much like it would have been then.
Up the road from this house is another one, billed as "Anne's House of Dreams." It also belongs to some distant family members and is a cute little house, but definitely not the house from the book by that name. For one thing, the location is all wrong. Anne's House of Dreams was in the fictional Four Winds Harbor, 60 miles from Avonlea -- in the other direction. "They shouldn't be allowed to call this the House of Dreams," said Joy, quite insulted. But there is a little school there that could have been like the Avonlea School. So, we decided it wasn't a totally wasted visit.
Much nicer was the museum at Silver Bush, another six miles along Route 6. This house belonged to an aunt and uncle of Montgomery's, a place she called "the wonder castle of my childhood," where she often visited her "merry cousins." She lived here for a brief time after her grandmother died and was married here in the parlor. She used the farm for the setting of several of her other books, including "Pat of Silver Bush" and "The Story Girl," the book that she always said was her favorite. And the pond out back, she said, was the inspiration for the Lake of Shining Waters found in the Anne books.
Her "enchanted bookcase," some first edition books, the crazy patchwork quilt she spent a lot of time on ("by the time I finished, they were out of fashion") and many other objects and artifacts from her life are on display here. There's also a nice gift shop and antiques store. If only we had room enough (and money enough) to haul everything home. . . .
"What a splendid day! . . . I pity people who aren't born yet for missing it! They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one." -- Anne of Green Gables
That night in our room at the Barachoise Inn, Joy and I agreed that Cavendish and PEI were all that we had hoped. We had been a little apprehensive that it wouldn't live up to our ideal. After all, in "Anne of the Island," Montgomery notes that: "She was richer in those dreams than in realities. For things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal." But we agreed that there was enough still left to the imagination and enough of delight to be found that we hit just the right balance. We knew we were leaving these "haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blow" much richer for the experience.
We also knew another Anne adventure awaited us.
The next night in Charlottetown, we went to the "Anne of Green Gables" musical at the Confederation of the Arts Theater. And this is another not-to-be-missed occasion for Anne fans. Now celebrating its 35th year, the musical is a summer tradition on the island. Even David was delighted. "As good as Gilbert and Sullivan!" he pronounced.
Over the next few days we found that there is more to Prince Edward Island than just Anne. Everywhere we went, we found interesting things to see and do. Beauty, charm, history, character. But we also knew in our hearts that it wouldn't be the same without her. And we also found we had discovered the litmus test for kindred spirithood. To some people, you don't have to explain the significance of PEI and why you went there. They already know!
"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world." -- Anne of Green Gables