Through the eyes of the red-haired orphan who has captured the hearts of readers for 100 years, I learned a few things about Prince Edward Island; some things are the same, others she never dreamed of. I crossed the Northumberland Strait onto Canada's smallest province on Confederation Bridge, completed in 1997. Anne, adopted from Nova Scotia, came by ferry and then by train to arrive at her new home. Today, the trains are gone and the rail bed is a hike and bike path stretching from one tip of the island to the other.
Russet apples and potatoes are unchanged from the early 1900's. Miles and miles of potatoes, growing on small farms in ruddy soil, red from iron oxide, and with a view......where else can a potato farmer enjoy such scenery? And where else does a potato have its own museum but in O'Leary, PEI?
I doubt that Anne dreamed that one day PEI would call itself Canada’s Green Island and use wind turbines for 5% of its electricity. The North Cape Wind Energy Interpretive Center filled my mind with facts and opinions. PEI was my first experience with green garbage. By the time I left the island I had the system down: compost the ketchup, leftover fries and napkin, trash the plastic fork, recycle the ketchup bottle, and take the wine bottle back for a refund. (Anything bottled on the island uses refundable bottles.) PEI is home to the original recycler, Édouard Arsenault, an Acadian who, after returning from World War II, collected thousands of glass bottles and built a house, a tavern and a chapel Cap-Egmont at before he finally became compost himself in 1984. Coincidentally, he was also a lighthouse keeper.
Anne talked only of food which was served at tea time, but if she had discussed dinner, surely fish would have been prominent. After potatoes, fishing is the second largest industry. PEI gave me my first taste of hake, which is popular in Ireland and now appearing in North American waters. It was the luncheon special at the Blue Fin in Souris, where biscuits, coleslaw and mashed potatoes generously covered my plate. Then there was desert, the moistest bread pudding which the friendly waitress packed to go. Lobster is in season, but we are early for tuna. Scallops are another local favorite, along with oysters and quahogs, which one waitress described as like clams but slimier. Along the Northern Acadian cape, at the Seaweed Cafe in Miminegash I had my first meat pie and a seaweed pie made from Irish moss harvested from the ocean. I’ll try anything once, except quahogs.
By the time I reached Cavendish and the Green Gables house, I was in love with Anne the island’s heroine, referred to by Mark Twain as the most lovable children’s book character since Alice. I confess to butterflies as I approached the house made famous by Lucy Montgomery, who tried five publishers before one accepted her manuscript. She was only 19 when she wrote the book. Since it was published in 1908, it has been translated into 17 languages and has 7 sequels.
Anne of Green Gables made me fall in love with Montgomery's island. I was wistful when I finished her book, and reluctant to leave her island. Montgomery felt the same way. When she was 37, she married a minister and moved to Ontario where she raised three sons and continued to write until her death. But her heart never left the island. She asked to come home to the island of her birth to be buried, near Green Gables in Cavendish Community Cemetery. I understand why.
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