RIP Jonathan Crombie

Yesterday, we heard that sad news that Jonathan Crombie, best known for playing Gilbert in the Sullivan Anne of Green Gables films and Road to Avonlea, had passed away at the age of 48 from a brain hemorrhage on April 15th.

In addition to his many television roles, Crombie was well-known to the theatre world as an actor at Stratford and on Broadway.

His sister Carrie said, "I think he was really proud of being Gilbert Blythe and was happy to answer any questions ... he really enjoyed that series and was happy, very proud of it — we all were."

Producer Kevin Sullivan said, "I think there will be hundreds of people who will be floored that this has happened. It's such a devastating tragedy. In reality, Jonathan was as generous, as kind, as sensitive and as ambitious, in some ways, as the character he came to be identified with."

Jonathan Crombie's performances have touched thousands of people around the world and it is indeed a tragedy that he has passed on at so young an age.  His fans will always remember him through the work he has left us.

Horrible New Anne Cover

A company called CreateSpace has published a new edition of Anne of Green Gables with a horrible cover!  They seem to have replaced our favourite 19th century orphan with Daisy Duke!?

The 1908 novel is in the public domain so pretty much anyone can publish it.  I really hope no one will buy this one!  What are your thoughts?

L.M. Montgomery's Birthplace

L.M. Montgomery was born November 30, 1874 in a small white and green house overlooking New London Harbour on PEI.

The house is very well-maintained.  The interior is decorated with period Victorian furnishings.  There is a small bedroom decorated as it may have been when Montgomery was born there.

On display in the house is Montgomery's wedding dress.  It has been perfectly preserved and it's amazing to see how tiny it is!  Humans really have evolved to become larger and taller in a very short time.

MacNeil Homestead

"Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time."

-Anne of Avonlea

I don't believe the above quotation was written while thinking about the MacNeil homestead but somehow the idea of it being "lonely but not forsaken" seemed appropriate to me.  It is no longer lived in but visited frequently.

This was Montgomery's home from 1876 to 1911.  She was taken here to live with her maternal grandparents after her mother died of tuberculosis.

What first struck me about this foundation was the small size.  Sometimes we take for granted our massive homes today but the amount of physical labour it would have taken to create even this small house 150 years ago would have been enormous.

This area is preserved with well-tended walking paths along which are plaques with quotations by Montgomery and short descriptions of the area.

Anne of Green Gables Museum

"It's good to be here again... There's something about Park Corner that isn't in other places..."

-L.M. Montgomery

The Anne of Green Gables Museum is located at Park Corner.  It's in the Campbell home that was built by Montgomery's aunt and uncle in 1872.  The house still belongs to the Campbell family some 230 years later.  This is the house that Montgomery called Silver Bush and it provides the inspiration for her descriptions of the house in her novel Pat of Silver Bush.

The museum houses many antique pieces that were in the house at the time Montgomery would have visited it.  There is also a great collection of some of Montgomery's belongings, some original family photos and also first editions of Montgomery's books.

The rooms are small but very well laid out and the house is more spacious than it might appear from the outside.

Three years after Anne of Green Gables was published Montgomery married Ewan Macdonald in the parlour of this house.  Tourists still come from all over the world to be married in that room or on the grounds near the Lake of Shining Waters.  Montgomery's wedding dress is housed at her birthplace.

I found the museum to be a wonderful tribute to Montgomery's life and work.  The grounds are beautiful and it's well worth visiting if you're on PEI.

Lake of Shining Waters

"…the Lake of Shining Waters was blue — blue — blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all modes and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquillity unbroken by fickle dreams." 

-Anne of the Island

L.M. Montgomery's inspiration for Anne's Lake of Shining Waters was a pond at Park Corner just next to the Campbell Homestead, home of her uncle John Campbell.

It is a beautiful spot to visit.  These days, there is a lovely little garden with benches and a gazebo nearby.  The staff of the Anne of Green Gables Museum, which now resides in the Campbell Homestead, told us that tourists from all over the world come to be married at the shores of the pond.

The pond is certainly much smaller than the lake described in the Anne books, but that's the power of imagination.  Montgomery admitted in her journals that some inspiration may also have come from the Cavendish Pond.

“‘The Lake of Shining Waters’ is generally supposed to be the Cavendish Pond.  This is not so.  The pond at Park Corner is the one I had in mind.  But I suppose that a good many of the effects of light and shadow I have seen on the Cavendish pond figured unconsciously in my descriptions; and certainly the hill from which Anne caught her first glimpse of it was ‘Laird’s Hill’ where I have often stood at sunset, 

enraptured with the beautiful view of shining pond and crimson-brimmed harbor and dark blue sea.”

Red Roads

"But those red roads are so funny.  When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's sake not to ask her any more questions."

-Anne of Green Gables

I've returned from my Prince Edward Island trip (though I didn't want to leave).  The island is every bit as beautiful as one would gather it to be from reading L.M. Montgomery's work.  The red roads are truly spectacular.  They pop out from the emerald fields and run for miles all around and over the rolling hills.

I had to look up what causes them and I don't think understanding the science behind them makes them any less magical to look at.  Most of PEI is made up of wonderful red sandstone.  Over time, the stone is eroded by wind and water and broken down into the soil.  Iron is what causes the red colour.  Apparently, it's not only beautiful but ideal for growing potatoes, grains and other crops.

I collected a bag of the reddest soil I could find and it's now inhabiting a jar on my bookshelf next to my Montgomery books.  

Over the next month or so I'm going to be posting all about my trip.  I took over 400 photos and I hope you'll enjoy them!

Anne of Green Gables: The Musical

We've purchased our tickets to see Anne of Green Gables: The Musical at the Charlottetown Festival during our trip.  I hear that the production has recently been revamped so it will be interesting to see what changes have been made.  The script revisions are being made by Don Harron who is the only remaining creator of the original musical.  The production also has a new director, Marcia Kash, who has a "new concept" and a "new design."

I previously saw a production of Anne at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto in 1991.  Jessica Wilson appeared as Anne in that production.  Unfortunately, I cannot find my ticket or program and I usually save those!


Anne of Green Gables: The Musical has been running continuously in PEI for 46 years!  There's also a relatively new production called Anne & Gilbert: The Musical which launched in 2005 in Summerside.  I haven't yet bought tickets for that one but I hear that it's also quite good so I may try the box office if I have time.