The Anne of Green Gables Guide to Prince Edward Island

Three can’t-miss sites for any L.M. Montgomery fan

by Victoria Welch

An idyllic town on Canada’s Prince Edward Island … a charming young girl with an incredible imagination … a lovely white house with green trim. For more than a century, this has been a winning combination for millions of readers, each of whom has fallen under the spell of Anne Shirley, the plucky, flame-haired girl at the heart of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.

But what many readers don’t realize is that the words above actually describe Lucy Maud Montgomery herself. The worlds of the celebrated author (known as Maud to her family and friends) and her most famous heroine are closely paralleled—and visiting Maud’s special places on P.E.I. today yields incredible insights to any Anne fan.

“Hallowed ground”: The Cavendish Home

The bucolic community in which Anne grows up, Avonlea, is a fictitious town … technically. Much of the village’s vibrant color and charm comes from Cavendish, a small community of less than 300 people perched along P.E.I’s. northern coast.

Maud’s readership knows well that Anne Shirley arrived in Avonlea as an orphan, but many don’t realize that the author’s road to Cavendish was similarly paved with family tragedy. She was transferred to her maternal grandparents’ custody as a youngster, after her mother died and her father decided to travel west.

It was under their care that Maud grew and developed her vivid imagination, creating a cast of characters that became her imaginary friends throughout her childhood. While she would move on to pursue her education and a career as a schoolteacher, she returned to the Cavendish home in 1902, where she cared for her then-widowed grandmother until her death in 1911. Maud said of the property, “It is and ever must be hallowed ground to me,” and it was in that family home that she dove into the bright and complex life of Anne Shirley.

While that house no longer stands, the foundations and property of Maud’s childhood home is now a Canadian National Historic Site. LM Montgomery’s Cavendish Home is still tended by members of her extended family, and the site features information about the site’s significance.

The setting: Green Gables Heritage Place

About a quarter mile from the Cavendish Home lies a house that any Anne fan would know at first sight, from the white clapboards to the green shutters to the unmistakable dark green gabled roof. While today it’s known as Green Gables Heritage Place, Maud knew it as the home of her relatives, David Jr. and Margaret Macneil. While she never lived on the farm herself, she fell under its spell while visiting and exploring the surrounding lands.

Those familiar with Anne’s adventures and misadventures (known in her parlance as “scrapes”) can see just how strong an influence the real Green Gables had on the fictitious. Visitors to the farm can explore a floor plan labeled to show each of the character’s rooms—Anne and Marilla on the second floor, sweet Matthew on the first—and venture outside to find some of Anne’s (and Maud’s) favorite outdoor spaces. Lover’s Lane and the Haunted Wood? Both are present and accounted for, and today visitors will often find an enthusiastic red-haired young lady ready to greet them and show them around.

“The wonder castle”: Anne of Green Gables Museum

Many of Maud’s readers smile upon thinking of the Lake of Shining Waters, the body of water described early in Anne of Green Gables. It revealed much about Anne’s character that, upon hearing it was known simply as Barry’s Pond, she renamed it in style befitting its beauty.

Today, the lake can be found about 13 miles to the west of Green Gables farm—in nearby Kensington. It’s a key part of any visit to the Anne of Green Gables Museum at Silver Bush, a home built by John and Annie Campbell (Maud’s uncle and aunt) in 1872. Maud also found this property enchanting, referring to it as “a big white beautiful house smothered in orchards that was the wonder castle of my childhood.”

This house served as a key location in Maud’s non-Anne life: It was there that she married minister Ewan Macdonald, and she went on to set several of her novels in this house. This location offers a particularly rich look into the life of the author herself, with photographs and artifacts from Maud’s life that showcase not only the writer’s personality, but also the early 19th-century setting in which a beloved author was developed.

Three can't-miss sites for any L.M. Montgomery fan

The Canadian Rockies’ iconic inhabitants

by Danielle Ossher

Jagged snow-laced peaks, ethereal crystalline lakes, and densely lush forests converge in scenes of awe-inspiring beauty throughout the Canadian Rockies. And within these pristine natural landscapes live a varied abundance of wildlife—from the smallest to most imposing of creatures.

The myriad animals that call this striking mountain range home share footing in defining the scenes that allure so many: visitors inspired to experience the magnificent sites themselves, and to perhaps be as lucky as to spot a few famed locals in their most natural of habitats. For many, the sight of bald eagles circling high over salmon-laden rivers and bighorn sheep clinging steadfastly to nearly-sheer cliff sides are equally as iconic as the most quintessential scenic snapshot.

National Park Staples

The idyllic landscapes of Banff and Jasper, and the expanse between the two, are a bounty of sighting opportunity—black bears, elk, bighorn sheep, moose, and bald eagles are all prevalent here. In fact, both national parks are home to 53 species of mammals alone, along with a diverse array of small mammals, birds, and fish, while Maligne Lake and Icefields Parkway also boast their own chance encounters.

Bears are unarguably the main attraction (Banff and Jasper even have online Bear Reports), and mid-April to mid-June is prime season for catching a glimpse of both the black and grizzly, as their post-hibernation hunger draws them out for feeding. But they’re not the only heavy hitters: Moose can be found lake- and streamside, as well as in the forests, collecting a meal of twigs and leaves, and keen-eyed observers who place their gaze upward will spot bighorn sheep effortlessly maneuvering cliff faces.

The Red River

Each fall, British Columbia’s Fraser River takes on a vibrant crimson hue imbued by the salmon run—and sockeye salmon have long played an important role for other local wildlife like bears and eagles, the First Nations people, and the provinces’ economy at large because of this annual occurrence. (Sockeye earned the moniker from Anglicization of the Halkomelem word suk-kegh, meaning “red fish.”)

The third most common species of wild Pacific salmon, sockeye make their way from salty ocean waters to return to the fresh water from where they once migrated. Once here, they’ll spawn as their final act. The normally blue-and-silver fish become a vibrant combination of bright-red bodies with green heads to mark the occasion (both male and female). The annual salmon run can bring millions of sockeye to the Fraser River and its tributaries—2010, the largest salmon run in nearly a century, saw upwards of 30 million.

The Whistlers

Half of the renowned Whistler-Blackcomb ski destination, the imposing Whistler Mountain has an unmistakable air of challenge. Yet this 2010 Winter Olympics site is, in truth, named such for a much less commanding reason—the hoary marmot.

While the small stature of these ground squirrels may not be grounds for notice, their distinctive noise demands it. Dubbed “the whistler,” and even “whistle pigs,” the hoary marmot emits a high-pitched noise as a warning to its fellows to approaching danger. These marmots thrive in the grassy tree lines along Whistler’s slopes, and their echoing cries inspired the name change from London Mountain in the 1960s.

The Canadian Rockies' Iconic Inhabitants

Canada’s Champion: The Bluenose

An enduring symbol of Nova Scotia’s maritime heritage

by Bob Hammerling

If you look at the back side of a Canadian dime, you’ll see a ship. It’s not just any old vessel—it’s the image of the Bluenose, a famous fishing schooner and a celebrated icon of Nova Scotia’s close ties to the sea.

To truly understand the Bluenose’s place in Canadian history, you first need to know about the competition that set the stage for its success.

The Fisherman’s Trophy: Racing for glory

The story of the Bluenose begins in 1919, when a race for the America’s Cup—a prominent sailing event for well-to-do yachters—was postponed by a 23-mile per hour gale. The deep-sea fishermen of Nova Scotia—to whom such a wind was little more than a stiff breeze—scoffed at the news, and sought to prove their superiority over the upper crust pleasure boating crowd by starting their own racing league. Thus, the Halifax Herald North Atlantic Fisherman's International Competition—the Fisherman’s Trophy, for short—was born.

In contrast to the America’s Cup, the Fisherman’s Trophy was no upper crust frivolity for wealthy yacht owners: It was a chance for hard working fishing ships to earn bragging rights over their rivals. To be eligible to race, each ship had to work at least one season in the treacherous waters of the Grand Banks (a fish-rich region of the sea off of Newfoundland).

The chief rivalry for the Fisherman’s Trophy was between the sailors of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and Gloucester, Massachusetts, who both claimed to be home to the finest deep-sea fishing fleets the world had to offer. The inaugural race was held in 1920, and Gloucester took the trophy home. With its ego wounded, Lunenburg began preparing its response.

Enter Bluenose

In 1921, the Lunenburg shipbuilding company of Smith & Rhuland finished construction of a sleek and practical schooner that would go on to become legend. They named her Bluenose, a nickname given to the Nova Scotian people, and, after a season of work hauling record-breaking amounts of fish from the Grand Banks (to both establish its eligibility in the league, and to fund its own entrance fee), it would represent Canadian sailing prowess and secure Nova Scotia’s place in the annals of maritime history.

Her captain was Angus Walters, an expert sailor who put the Bluenose through her paces with aplomb, winning her first Fisherman’s Trophy handily against the Gloucester captain—Marty Welch of the Elsie—who had shamed the Nova Scotians just one year earlier. Bringing the trophy back to Canada, the Bluenose was an instant celebrity.

She would continue to impress over her 17-year racing career, winning the Fisherman’s Trophy again and again, most famously against her chief rival, the Gertrude L. Thebaud, captained by Ben Pine, another Gloucester man. Although the Thebaud did manage a victory over the Bluenose once in the Lipton Cup, an American-sponsored race off the coast of Gloucester, in the Fisherman’s Race, the Bluenose was undefeated: “The wood ain't growin' yet that'll beat Bluenose,” boasted Captain Walters.

The Bluenose’s fame made it an ambassador of Canada’s goodwill, and in 1935, she sailed across the Atlantic to attend the Silver Jubilee of King George V of Great Britain as a national representative. On the way home she encountered a terrible storm. Hurricane-force winds assailed the ship, flooding the decks and knocking her down for a full five minutes. But Bluenose wasn’t ready to die: She simply righted herself, limped home, dusted herself off, and continued to win races.

In 1938, Bluenose won its last Fisherman’s Trophy, once again going up against Gloucester’s Thebaud. In the final moments of the final race of a best-of-five series, Captain Walters urged the Bluenose on, “One more time old girl, just one more time,” setting a record-breaking pace and securing the trophy, as well as the ship’s place in history.

With its racing days behind it, the Bluenose finished its days in humility, doing the work it was built for—fishing. In 1942, she was sold—over the protests of Captain Walters, who could do nothing to stop it—to the West Indian Trading Company, where she worked for four years before striking a reef and sinking off the coast of Haiti in 1946.

Keeping the tradition of the Bluenose alive

Although the ship was sunk, it was not forgotten. In 1963, Smith & Rhuland dusted off the Bluenose’s blueprints and built the ship once again—in fact, some of the same builders who constructed the original vessel had their hand in the construction of the new ship, christened the Bluenose II. For its inaugural voyage, Captain Walters took the helm and sailed the ship into the West Indies, where her mother spent her final days.

Today, the ship rests in its home city in Lunenberg, where visitors can look upon it, and, during the summer, join it as it sets out to sea to reminisce about the last days of the age of sail.

Canada's Champion: The Bluenose

Recipe: Canadian maple salmon

from Harriet’s Corner

While Canada exports the world’s seventh-largest amount of fish and other seafood products, it also keeps more than enough within its borders for seafood to be a significant staple in any Canadian’s diet. And despite the regional differences one might expect in such an expansive nation, Canadians from coast to coast list salmon among their favorite fishes to serve come dinnertime.

What could be more Canadian than combining this suppertime standby with another iconic ingredient? When it comes to maple syrup, Canada is king. With more than seven million gallons of the sweet stuff produced in Canada each year, this nation dominates when it comes to maple syrup export—it makes up 80 percent of the world’s exports, with the U.S. providing that last 20 percent. And while many first think of pouring maple syrup over pancakes or French toast, it can also add a special kick to baked goods, meats—even your morning coffee.

This dish will complement the flavor of salmon—particularly bountiful in the Pacific Northwest—with that of Canada’s liquid gold.

Ingredients

1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper, ground
1 lb salmon

Preparation

1. In a small bowl, mix maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic, garlic salt, and pepper.
2. Place salmon in a shallow glass baking dish, then coat with the maple syrup mixture. Cover the dish and let the salmon marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, turning once.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Place baking dish in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until easily flaked with a fork.

Servings: Serves four.