Prince Edward Island – An Island and The Atlantic At Last!

The highlight for me at Prince Edward Island was visiting Green Gables, the recreated home of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne, the main character and red-haired orphan of her legendary book, Anne of Green Gables that has become a children’s classic. I was fabulously impressed with the collection of items that has been sourced from the town to recreate the furnishings of the house. The outdoors, the barn, the carriage, the white birch grove, the flower gardens with overhanging hedges  and helter-skelter black-eyed susans, hibiscus and wild flowers – all  smacked of a past rural storybook fantasy. The heritage site sent chills up my spine. It was like walking in the writer’s shoes. Here are three photos of the  interior.

“Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was–a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves–they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of brown-silk ribbon.” (Anne of Green Gables, Chapter XXV)

Anne’s Brown Gloria Dress

On entering the house, visitors follow a rope, conga line fashion, through the rooms, because the house is so small and can get very crowded.  Here is a  photo of one corner of the living room with its hair-wreath made of hair of all the generations, and also in this corner is  a status-symbol of wealth, the horsehair chair.

 The bridge over the creek along the Haunted Wood Trail

Prince Edward Island is also legendary for its potatoes. In the yard next to the schoolhouse adjoining the Potato Museum this encrusted antique (coopers barrel?) with 1695 (year/date?) inscribed on it caught my eye.

I also couldn’t resist the schoolhouse, much like the one I attended back in the Caribbean (and adjoining church) and also the see-saw in the yard, all next door to the Potato Museum. I guess you can tell my interest in potatoes!