Anne of Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels have become key to PEI's tourism economy, drawing thousands of visitor's each year. The Island’s population of 177,000 swells in the summer to more than a half a million visitors, with about 6 per cent coming just for Anne.John Sylvester/PEI Tourism
I was eight and living in Dubai when I first read Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. The red-haired orphan girl from faraway Prince Edward Island was a dreamer, just like me. Anne Shirley’s life and mine couldn’t have been more different – for starters, I was brown, dark-haired, black-eyed and living in a desert – but we both imagined a different reality than the one expected of us.
Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to be a secretary when I grew up. For daughters of foreign workers, there weren’t many options. Our best hope was either to get married or get a job at a company that would provide a visa and a salary.
But, now, perhaps, like the trailblazing Anne – who shared my deep reverence for words, reading and imagination – I could strive for something else. “It’s delightful to have ambitions,” I remember reading in the much-loved paperback copy that my mom picked up at Dubai’s Magrudy’s, the only English-language bookstore in the emirate at the time. “I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them – that’s the best of it.”
A statue of Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery stands in the province.John Sylvester/PEI Tourism
I was 15 when my family moved to Canada and all I could think was that I was finally coming to the country that had birthed Anne. I pictured a pastoral heaven fragrant with apple blossoms and buttercups, where I’d wander under cherry- and birch-tree canopies. Alas, my family landed in Toronto, where there were no ruby cliffs, rolling emerald fields or sapphire waters. I couldn’t find any fellow Anne fans, either. But I knew they were out there.
After all, Anne of Green Gables has been translated into 36 languages (including Arabic, Polish and Japanese). Mark Twain called her “the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.” And Aretha Franklin said, “She’s such a can-do kind of girl, that’s why I’m crazy about her.”
She’s also the only literary character that has an entire tourism economy built around her, drawing thousands of fans to PEI every year. The Island’s population of 177,000 swells in the summer to more than a half a million visitors, with about 6 per cent coming just for Anne.
Montgomery used the original farmhouse at Green Gables in Cavendish, PEI as the inspiration for the setting for Anne of Green Gables. The house belonged to her cousins, the Macneill family.John Sylvester/PEI Tourism
And every time there is another adaptation of the story, the tiny island sees another surge. A new original audiobook from Audible Canada featuring Sandra Oh, Victor Garber, Catherine O’Hara and Michela Luci (as Anne) may draw still more numbers. Corryn Clemence, the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of PEI, says “inclusion in these platforms will introduce Anne’s enchanting story to even more listeners.”
It’s been a long time since I first read Anne, though as The Globe’s Arts/Books editor, I’m continuously pitched on new editions (Nimbus Publishing recently did a gorgeous two-in-one of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea). I was curious to discover if Anne still held the same fascination for me as an adult as she did when I was younger. I headed to PEI to find out.
As Providence would I have it, I met a kindred spirit immediately upon landing. My guide for the next few days, Hiroki Suzuki, left Japan 30 years ago to move to PEI. Why? “It was Anne. I came for her,” she said.
The Green Gables House place is furnished to appear as it would have been the book. Below: On the second floor, visitors will find Anne’s room with a dress of puffed sleeves hanging on the closet door.
John Sylvester/PEI Tourism
One of Suzuki’s first recommended stops was the original farmhouse at Green Gables in Cavendish, which Montgomery used as the inspiration for the setting for Anne of Green Gables. It belonged to her cousins, the Macneill family. The place is now kitted out in furnishings that would have been in Matthew and Marilla’s house. Look for the framed Victorian hair wreath in the living room (apparently it was fashionable to mourn the dead by making their hair into art or jewellery. Shudder.). Upstairs you’ll find Anne’s room with a dress of puffed sleeves hanging on the closet door. Reader, I may have squealed.
I listened to the new audiobook while walking the 900-metre Haunted Wood Trail to what is left of Montgomery’s Cavendish home, where she lived with her maternal grandparents. As I took in the woodsy, earthy scents of birch and spruce and marvelled at the headiness of the delicately blooming apple blossoms, I reflected anew at the author’s ability to capture her surrounding landscape and wondered why I didn’t know more about her.
How could a prolific writer on par with Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Eleanor H. Porter (Pollyanna) not be more celebrated in the rest of Canada? She’s been on the curriculum in Japan since 1952. And while we know of Anne, why not Montgomery’s other novels, such as Emily of New Moon or Jane of Lantern Hill?
This November marks the 150th anniversary of Montgomery’s birth. With the 16th L.M. Montgomery Biennial Conference taking place this June at the University of Prince Edward Island, it was the perfect time for me to head to the leafy, Gothic-looking campus to talk with Kate Scarth, chair of L.M. Montgomery studies. “Despite Anne of Green Gables never going out of print, Montgomery has never been as well-regarded in the rest of Canada. Partly, that’s because Toronto modernist critics really savaged her as everything that was wrong with literature,” she said. But “Maud was determined to create. She was one of the first people to have a camera on PEI and she was connected to nature. She also did collage and mixed media.”
She’s also a writer who has many admirers: Anne Rice, Jane Urquhart, Stephenie Meyer and Carley Fortune, whose latest book, This Summer Will Be Different, is set in PEI.
Boats are moored at New London Harbour, PEI.Brian McInnis/PEI Tourism
I decided to head up to the Bideford Parsonage Museum, which is a bit off the beaten trail but the perfect opportunity to explore the northwest coast of the island. The drive there through fields of red with the distinctive mounds of potato plants was sublime and peaceful, and ideal for listening to another Montgomery book. This was where Montgomery taught school and her experiences there were crucial to her writing.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get Janice Trowsdale as a guide at the museum. Not only is she a Montgomery enthusiast, but she knows everything you need to know about rural life during the 1800s.
As I spent more time contemplating Maud, as she preferred to be known, I realized that it was not Anne that held me as an adult, but her creator. After all, she had published 20 novels, 530 short stories, 500 poems and 30 essays, all at a time when this country’s literary output wasn’t exactly – what’s the word? – robust. And she did it all while struggling with intense depression.
As I spent my final day strolling Brackley Beach, PEI National Park, a 10-kilometre stretch of sand dunes, grass and saltwater marshes along the north shore, I marvelled at my good fortune – not just at discovering this life-changing character as a child, but, more importantly, an author who should be as important to this country as Dickens and Austen are to Britain.
Brackley Beach, PEI National Park is a 10-kilometre stretch of sand dunes, grass and saltwater marshes along PEI's the north shore.
Brian McInnis/PEI Tourism
If you go
Canadian Audible Original Anne of Green Gables is available on the Audible Family Listens channel on Air Canada’s in-flight entertainment system.
FOR THE ANNE SUPERFAN: Stay in Charlottetown at the Elmwood Heritage Inn, which may have served as an inspiration for Beechwood house, Great Aunt Josephine’s manor abode, which led Anne to realize “I wasn’t born for city life.”
But if you want to spend the day browsing through Cavendish, the heart of Anne country, book the Montgomery Inn at Ingleside. The inn was the home of Montgomery’s paternal grandfather, senator Donald Montgomery. It’s about 20 minutes away from Parks Canada’s Green Gables Heritage Place and across from the Lake of Shining Waters (that’s right, it’s not where you thought it should be). I was lucky and got the room overlooking the lake.
FOR THE ANNE CURIOUS: Stay in Charlottetown at the Holman Grand Hotel, located right next door to the Confederation Centre of the Arts. There you can catch Anne of Green Gables: The Musical, billed by Guinness World Records as the longest running musical theatre production in the world, although it now runs every other year. The other musical in town – Anne & Gilbert – plays at Holland College, which was once Prince of Wales College, the alma mater of L.M. Montgomery and the setting of Anne’s Queen’s College.
In Charlottetown, finish up the day on the patio of the Sea Rocket sampling a variety of oysters, which I’ll list by order of my preference: Raspberry Point (briny with just a hint of sweet), Lucky Limes (salty and subtle), Rustico (juicy) and Malpeque (crisp and clean). Or you can go upscale at the Claddagh Oyster House for the lobster.
FOR THE ANNE AGNOSTIC: Head to North Rustico to the Farmer’s Bank and Doucet House to learn about the Acadians. My guide, Arnold Smith, is not just an expert on Father Belcourt, who set up the Acadian credit union, but also has recreated period dresses with puffed sleeves. If you don’t order the traditional on-site meal of bannock, meat pie and fish cakes, head to Blue Mussel Café for a glass of rosé and a lobster roll.
The writer was a guest of Tourism PEI. It did not review or approve the story before publication.