 |
travel / great places / explorer / so05
| Explorer |
|
|
Riding the Rails
The fable of Green Gables
The red hair of Anne of Green Gables
is as emblematic of Prince
Edward Island (map) as the red soil.
The setting of Lucy Maude Montgomery's famous novel brings more
than
350,000
visitors from around the world to the island each year to explore
Anne's stomping grounds.
Green Gables, the famed farm that visitors flock to, was actually
the home of Montgomery's grandfather's cousins, David Jr. and
Margaret Macneill. David Macneill Sr. had first settled the farm
in 1831.
Lucy Maude Montgomery never actually lived there, but rather
with her grandparents who lived nearby and would visit the farm.
Although the area surrounding the farm inspired Montgomery's
imagination, the setting of her book was fictitious. Nonetheless,
people started
visiting the Cavendish area shortly after Anne of Green Gables
was published in 1908 to search for the Haunted Wood, Lover's
Lane and
people from the Avonlea of the novel.
The Green Gables farm was passed down to Myrtle Webb, the niece
of the Macneill's. Along with her husband, Ernest, she raised
her family
and operated the farm until 1936, when they sold the property
and it became part of the Prince
Edward Island National Park (map). In 1943,
shortly after Montgomery's death, the Historic Sites and
Monuments Board of Canada recognized the author as a person of
national
historical significance and erected a monument and plaque
at Green Gables.
For more information:
|
|
| ADVERTISEMENT |
|
|
|
|
