“What does that loudmouth little red-headed girl have to do with me?” I wondered. I had just found out that my little trip to Prince Edward Island, to the inaugural Cavendish Literary Festival, had become a pilgrimage to the home of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic work Anne of Green Gables — a book I previously had no interest in reading. You see, until then Montgomery and her beloved protagonist Anne Shirley were like sunburns to my dark, Trinidadian skin: I had heard about them but had only a vague idea what they were about. The Canadian tale of the pony-tailed orphan with the spunky spirit seemed quaint and irrelevant to me. 75 facts you might not know about Anne of Green Gables and author Lucy Maud MontgomeryThough I deferred to my CBC Books team of producers and agreed to read the book and receive a tour of Green Gables, the “temple of Montgomery”, I wondered what lessons these beloved books, their island home and their iconic heroine would have to teach me? LISTEN | Antonio Michael Downing learns about the legacy of Anne:The Next Chapter with Antonio Michael Downing26:36Why Anne of Green Gables is a superstar in JapanThe magic of MontgomeryAnne’s legacy has become central to Prince Edward Island’s tourism industry. (Antonio Michael Downing)What I found in the pages was thrilling: a writer in ecstasy with her subject, Dickensian vividness without Dickensian verbosity — characters so finely drawn it felt as though Montgomery had just dashed in from tea with them, witty, revealing dialogue that stuck and, of course, Anne. I wasn’t prepared to encounter this endlessly chatty, imaginative child, re-naming every feeling, every tree, even friendship itself — “Bosom Friend,” “Kindred Spirits” — imbuing it with a kind of magic. She exuded a boundless positivity despite her comically tragic upbringing. As my grandma, Miss Excelly, would say, “some things if you don’t laugh, you will cry.” Anne didn’t laugh but she never let trouble weigh her down. What I found in the pages was thrilling: a writer in ecstasy with her subject, Dickensian vividness without Dickensian verbosity.- Antonio Michael DowningBut my favorite Anne alchemy is in how Montgomery describes landscapes and geography. A mere pond became “The Lake of Shining Waters,” a stand of trees turned to, “The Haunted Wood,” and a scenic walking trail was instantly, “Lover’s Lane.” We still can’t get enough of Anne of Green GablesAnd even before the plane descended from the clouds over Charlottetown, I was already in awe of the ground from which this story grew. My initiation into the cult of Anne had begun. The Road to AvonleaA display from the museum in Prince Edward Island. (Antonio Michael Downing)Linden McIntyre must’ve thought that I was stalking him. Days after interviewing the former host of CBC’s The Fifth Estate about his new book, I said a sheepish hello on the airplane only for him and I to be piled into the same minivan upon landing. Both of us, we discovered, were on our way to the Cavendish Literary Festival, but Linden, an easterner, Cape Breton born and bred, was much less wide-eyed about the whole thing. We passed along the bright seaside road through the town of North Rustico and entered Prince Edward Island National Park. Although still visibly suffering from the impacts of recent tropical storms, the rugged beauty of the untouched spruce, pine, and maple trees, the majestic red sandstone cliffs and the white-sanded glory of the famous Cavendish Beach gave a strong dose of the sensual tonic drank daily to inspire Montgomery’s work. Our hosts on that ride were a retired couple, who regularly do guided tours, with the same curiosity and chattiness of many of Anne’s neighbours. An excellent primer for the spirit of the people there. Megan Follows as Anne of Green Gables (Anne Shirley) in a still image from Kevin Sullivan’s 1985 film version of the popular P.E.I. novel produced for CBC (Sullivan Entertainment/CBC)This islander gregariousness felt familiar. It reminded me that I too, like Anne and Montgomery, came of age running through the bushes of an island village. And then came Cavendish itself, wreathed in forests, splashed with streams and ponds, and contained on all sides by an endless cobalt blue sea and the ceaseless winds that blew in from it. The vibe I felt was exactly as Anne said upon her arrival, “Dear old world, you are lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.” The vibe I felt was exactly as Anne said upon her arrival, “Dear old world, you are lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”- Antonio Michael DowningThe busy tourist-heavy summer had just ended, and most of the seasonal workers had returned home leaving the town with the feeling of a circus the day after it had rolled away. I was ensconced in a cabin just down the road from the famous Green Gables Heritage Place and for a few days I shuttled through green hills and sparkling valleys to meet writers, talk shop and dog and pony our literary wares. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s original Anne of Green Gables manuscript added to prestigious United Nations registryThen, the day after the festival had concluded, I went to walk in Anne and Montgomery’s footsteps with a motley crew. We were Linda Lowther, Cavendish local and founder of the Cavendish Literary Festival, decorated author Thomas Wharton, and Kate Scarth, the chair of the L. M. Montgomery Institute at the University of P.E.I. – a Green Gables master jedi, if you will. We walked down Lover’s Lane, through the Haunted Wood, visited Montgomery’s favourite tree, the park dedicated in her honour and then toured Green Gables Heritage Place — complete with a museum, a barn, a gift shop and Raspberry Cordial on sale — her home ‘exactly’ as it was in her time. And, all the while, the impression of walking on hallowed ground never left. Antonio Michael Downing visits Lovers Lane. (Antonio Michael Downing)I came to this holy expedition as a fellow writer. And as a fellow writer the greatest impression was of awe for what one lady’s muse had wrought. To think that a story about an ‘ugly,’ unwanted girl, who arrived by mistake at a house at the edge of the world could become beloved in 36 languages, 50 million copies sold (pre-public domain, much more since), and one of the main economic drivers of the island. L.M. Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables named most translated Canadian bookAny writer would be jealous. And yet, I wonder what Montgomery would think of it all. Antonio Michael Downing discovers his inner Anne of Green Gables. (Antonio Michael Downing)The original Taylor Swift?Aretha Franklin once said of Anne: “She’s such a can-do kind of girl. That’s why I’m crazy about her.” This could easily be said of her creator Montgomery as well. Her mother also died when she was young and she was raised by her stern grandmother while her father was largely absent and chasing his fortunes. It is easy to see the resourcefulness and the rich imagination we have come to know in Anne in the woman who wrote her. Who, famously, labelled the book to which she had pinned all the hopes of her budding career: “not a great book at all.” Before everything, Montgomery was a creator. She published 20 novels, completed 100 short stories and poems, 12 scrapbooks, 10 handwritten journals, quilted, crocheted, directed plays, and played the organ in church. She was also known as a shrewd businesswoman. The creativity of her life existed side by side with her determination to run a successful business based on that creativity. Professor Kate Scarth writes of her that she was “the Taylor Swift of her day.” Antonio Michael Downing recently travelled to P.E.I. (Antonio Michael Downing)As a writer I also wondered what such a creative person would make of her legacy being as much economic as it is literary. You see, I had recently made a trip to Dublin to walk in the consecrated footsteps of James Joyce and his iconic character from Ulysses Leopold Bloom. I started to sense a pattern: A writer is tied to geography. They write a beloved story about that geography. Their life and that geography is deified — made sacred — and leveraged for commercial means — often, though not exclusively — by people disconnected from their artistic sensibility. This third deification narrative had a way of diverting from the originals. The famous “Gables,” for example, were not originally green. They were painted that way after the books became hits. Montgomery herself, while on her own literary pilgrimage to England, decried writers being turned into tourist attractions. Possibly the most telling was, according to Linda Lowther, the story of Anne’s famous “Lake of Shining Waters.” When the publishing of Montgomery’s journals revealed that fans had been visiting the wrong pond, many chose to stick with the mistaken pond rather than transfer their reverence to the new one. Making authors’ lives holy is a tricky business. Is this simply the price of success? The jaundiced eye of a non-believer picking apart others’ articles of faith? The over-analysis of a jealous writer? Possibly all-three? I questioned my questioning because when I told friends I was on my way to Green Gables, I was flattened by the range of women who adored the books and the intensity of that adoration. From the feminist, literature professor, to the soccer mom of three, to the teen sisters who had read the book in their class and passed it around in awe. In 2025, Anne’s universal adoration was still potent enough to unite age groups, race, nationality and class in a way I couldn’t account for. I had to get to the bottom of this. Personally, I loved Anne because she reminded me of me. Once, I was a chatty, imaginative, restless child roaming about my island’s woods with my friends. Anne was as relevant to me as any character I had ever read.Yet it is the restless positivity to which she puts her imagination that finally convinced me: Anne is one of the most endearing literary characters ever because she is a monument to the triumph of human imagination over everything. As Anne was Montgomery’s hope to remake her life, Anne’s ability to reshape the worst misadventures into friendship, joy, and community is a tribute to our power to re-imagine our lives. As Montgomery once said of her creation, “It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?” As the plane taxied down the runway and rose up over the lushness of Anne and Montgomery’s luminous isle, I thought smiling, “now, there’s something worth building a temple for.”
‘What I found in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s pages was thrilling’: Antonio of Green Gables
