Skip to contentSkip to Related Stories
  • FR
  The Anne of Green Gables  Manuscript
The Anne of Green Gables Manuscript:
  • The
    Manuscript
    • The Manuscript
    • About the Project
    • Verso Pages
    • L.M.M. Notes
  • The
    Author
    • L.M. Montgomery (1874–1942): A Writer’s Creative Life
    • The Life and Work of L.M. Montgomery
    • Rich with Allusions: Anne’s Literary Connections
    • Roots and Branches of the Family Tree: L.M. Montgomery’s Families
    • Other Sites and Stories
  • The Writing
    Process
    • Writing in the Kitchen: An Animation
    • The Manuscript Montgomery Created
    • Montgomery’s Imagining and Mapping
    • Montgomery’s Writing and Revising
    • What’s on the Backs of the Pages?
  • Montgomery’s
    Island
    • The Garden of the Gulf: Montgomery’s Prince Edward Island
    • The Island and Its People
    • Montgomery’s Cavendish
    • Reading the Land through Anne of Green Gables
    • The House of Home
    • L.M. Montgomery’s Green Gables
    • Discovering L.M. Montgomery and Anne in Cavendish
  • Anne’s
    Legacies
    • Covering the World
    • The Swedish Translation of Anne of Green Gables
    • Anne in Twenty-first Century Japan
    • Anne on Screen
    • Anne at Centre Stage
    • So Many Different Annes
    • Anne of Green Gables: Literary Classic
  • Resources
    & Links

Montgomery’s Island » Discovering L.M. Montgomery and Anne in Cavendish

Discovering L.M. Montgomery and Anne in Cavendish

Discovering L. M. Montgomery and ‘Anne’ in Cavendish

Carolyn Strom Collins
with additional media by Emily Woster and Elizabeth Epperly

The beauty of Cavendish’s north shore—with its spectacular sunrises and sunsets, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sand dunes and wide beaches, red sandstone cliffs, woods and barrens, wildflowers, and farm fields—continues to evoke memories of L.M. Montgomery for those who have read and loved her work, but there are other sites dotted around Cavendish that pay tribute to her and her legacy, rooted in this “little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence” (Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 1). 1

 An introduction to P.E.I. and Green Gables Heritage House in Cavendish, excerpted from Feelin' Mighty Proud
(2020 - 02:08)

“An Introduction to PEI and Green Gables,” excerpted from the much longer video production made by the Confederation Centre of the Arts: Feelin’ Mighty Proud (2020)

A voiceover, quoting enthusiastic lines from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne Shirley, begins as the screen shows aerial views of Prince Edward Island.

[Adam Brazier] “I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne. “I don’t exactly want to make people know more though I know that is the noblest ambition. But I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me to have some little joy or happy thought that would have never existed if I hadn’t been born.”

The aerial views include: green grain fields, red fields bounded by green grass, red cliffs, and blue waters; a white lighthouse sitting on a point of land above the sea; a blue-water harbour with small fishing boats moored along its curving edge; finally, a view of Green Gables Heritage House, a farmhouse with white walls, green shutters and green gable peaks. The house is surrounded by green grass and a white fence; on two sides of the house, small and larger grey barns with red doors create a farmyard space.

When the announcer stops speaking, the view bursts through one of the barn doors into the farmyard. Music plays briefly and then a uniformed Parks Canada guide introduces visitors to Green Gables Heritage Place.

[Christina Wakim] Hello and welcome. My name is Christina and we are currently in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island at Green Gables Heritage Place. This site is the original inspiration for the book Anne of Green Gables and we welcome roughly 200,000 people every year. There are many great things that you’ll find in the house such as the raspberry cordial that is now on the second shelf as it should have been. Not the red currant wine. You’ll also find Anne’s puffed sleeve dress upstairs in her room as well as the pieces of her slate, the slate that she broke on Gilbert’s head when he called her “Carrots.” You’ll never know what other great things you’ll find at Green Gables Heritage Place”

While she speaks about items in the house inspired by Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, video shows the front door of the house, a pantry shelf with a glass bottle of red raspberry cordial, Anne’s brown puffed-sleeve dress hanging on the closet door of her bedroom, and several pieces, on a trunk, of Anne’s broken school slate and its empty wooden frame.

When she finishes speaking, she gestures toward the house, inviting viewers to explore Green Gables Heritage Place house and grounds. Music begins and the Credits roll across the screen.

Transcript

Green Gables Heritage Place

Green Gables house, “Lover’s Lane,” the “Haunted Wood,” as well as the Site of L.M. Montgomery’s Cavendish Home (the Macneill house) are all part of L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish National Historic Site. You can visit Green Gables Heritage Place, which preserves the house itself and the surrounding trails (just as you can visit the foundation, kitchen, and grounds of the Macneill homestead, Montgomery’s actual home).

image of a white house with green trim and shutters
Anne Victoria Photography

Green Gables Heritage Place

Montgomery Park

In 2019, the Cavendish community dedicated a park to honour L.M. Montgomery, the founding families of Cavendish, and the Avonlea Women’s Institute. The centrepiece of the park is a life-size bronze statue, entitled “A Glimpse of Beauty,” designed by Prince Edward Island native Grace Curtis and sculpted by Nathan Scott.

Curtis said that she “hoped to portray Montgomery in her late 20s, during the time she lived in Cavendish and was inspired to write Anne of Green Gables.” The statue, according to Curtis, “depicts Montgomery taking on a posture of awe in a moment of pure inspiration. She wrote about this creative moment and called it ‘the Flash’” in the Emily books.  “Inspired by the beauty of nature, she lifts her head heavenward to take a deep breath, to take it all in; in part, a moment of joy, and in part, an acknowledgment of the gift of creativity she has been given.” Notice that a few of Montgomery’s beloved cats are in attendance.

Montgomery Park is located on the eastern side of Highway 13 just before the intersection with Highway 6. Trails from the park lead to Montgomery-related sites nearby.

bronze statue of a woman in a long skirt, a book in her lap, her face uplifted to the sun
Elizabeth Epperly

"A Glimpse of Beauty" by Grace Curtis and Nathan Scott

bronze statue of a woman in a long skirt, a book in her lap, her face uplifted to the sun.
bronze statue of a woman in a long skirt, a book in her lap, her face uplifted to the sun.

Cavendish School site

The one-room school that L.M. Montgomery attended was located first in a spot just south of the Cavendish Community Cemetery. It was later moved across the road and stood in what is now Montgomery Park, though the schoolhouse has since been removed.

Cavendish Community Cemetery

The Cavendish Community Cemetery at the corner of Highways 6 and 13 is the final resting place of L.M. Montgomery. She wanted to rest near her childhood home, with the murmur of the sea in the distance.  The large granite gravestone is flanked by two large evergreen shrubs and is often planted with colourful annuals. Montgomery’s husband Ewan Macdonald is also buried here. Other members of the Macneill family are buried in this cemetery as well, including Montgomery’s mother, Clara Macneill Montgomery; her Macneill grandparents, Alexander and Lucy Woolner Macneill; and her cousins who owned “Green Gables,” David and Margaret Macneill.

an iron archway over a paved path into a cemetary says "Resting Place of L.M. Montgomery, Cavendish"
Bernadeta Milewski

The entrance to the Cavendish Community Cemetery

Cavendish United Church

The Cavendish United Church (Cavendish Presbyterian Church until 1925) just east of the intersection of the two highways commemorates L.M. Montgomery’s membership with a plaque (dedicated in 2001) and a triple stained-glass window dedicated “To the Glory of God in loving memory of Lucy Maud Montgomery: November 1874.” Montgomery was organist here from 1903–1911 and the organ she donated and played is still used for services here. The church that Montgomery attended in her earlier years (until the present church was built) stood at the corner of the Cavendish Cemetery. When it needed to be replaced, Montgomery’s uncle, John Franklin Macneill, donated the land for the new building; it opened in 1902. Ewan Macdonald, Montgomery’s future husband, served as pastor of the Cavendish church from 1903–1906.

L.M. Montgomery’s funeral service was held here in April 1942.

a white church with a low steep in one corner, next to a stand of trees
Bernadeta Milewski

The Cavendish United Church

Cavendish Post Office

Next to the church is the Cavendish Post Office, which operates in the summer. It is housed in an Island vintage home, moved to this location in 1973, that is virtually identical to the Macneill home that Montgomery lived in for most of the first 37 years of her life (and where the original post office was housed in Montgomery's time).

Montgomery indicated that, had it not been for her personal connection to the post office, she might never have published her work. The anonymity of sending and receiving her manuscripts was assured, thus saving her the humiliation of anyone in Cavendish knowing about her rejections (for instance, Anne of Green Gables was rejected four times before L.C. Page and Co. of Boston accepted it, publishing it in 1908).

The present building serves not only as a Canada Post office but also as a small museum with displays that reveal some of the history of the post office on Prince Edward Island, including the use of ice boats to transport mail during the winter months, and even examples of those “red letter-bills” on which Montgomery used to write some of her early stories and poems. Letters, cards, and packages mailed from this post office are stamped “Green Gables.”

a small white building with green trim and a red door, surrounded by trees
Bernadeta Milewski

The Cavendish Post Office

“Rachel Lynde’s house”

North of the intersection of the two highways is Shining Waters Country Inn, originally the home of Pierce and Rachel Macneill, Montgomery’s cousins. Montgomery is said to have had this large home in mind for Rachel Lynde’s house in Anne of Green Gables. It was moved, some years ago, from its original location a short distance away to its present location.

a long yellow house with a full porch on two sides and a central brick chimney
Bernadeta Milewski

The Shining Waters Country Inn, Cavendish.

“Bright River” Train Station

“Bright River” in the Anne books was actually the town of Hunter River about nine miles south of Cavendish. The train station there would have been the one that Montgomery had in mind for Anne’s arrival and where she waited for Matthew to meet her. When the trains were discontinued in Prince Edward Island in the late 1960s, the depot was purchased and moved to Marco Polo Land, a large campground on the outskirts of Cavendish on Highway 13. Today it serves as a private residence near the entrance to the campground.

Incidentally, two of L. M. Montgomery’s earliest published pieces were an essay and a long poem about the Marco Polo, a famous ship that was wrecked on the Cavendish shore in 1883. She witnessed the wreck and the rescue of the ship’s crew.

Avonlea Village

Two buildings in Avonlea Village, a group of small shops and restaurants (on Highway 6), hold memories of L.M. Montgomery. The one-room schoolhouse in which she taught for a year (1896–97) was moved from Belmont, P.E.I., to Avonlea Village and restored. The Long River church was moved here, as well. Montgomery attended this church on occasion when she visited her Montgomery and Campbell relatives in Park Corner.

a small red-trimmed school house
Bernadeta Milewski
a yellow-and-white steepled church
Bernadeta Milewski

The former Belmont School and Long River Church. 

LMM_SketchArt_Book_500

1 If you can’t visit the Island, you can visit virtually. A virtual tour of some of the sites mentioned in this article was posted as part of the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s virtual conference in 2020, hosted on the site of the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies. In addition, you can plan a tour of these Montgomery sites, and others, with help from “The Inspiring World of L.M. Montgomery: A Literary Tour.”  Back

Related Stories

The Garden of the Gulf: Montgomery’s Prince Edward Island

The Island and Its People

Montgomery’s Cavendish

Reading the Land through Anne of Green Gables

The House of Home

L.M. Montgomery’s Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Manuscript is presented by the Confederation Centre of the Arts, the L.M. Montgomery Institute, and the University of Prince Edward Island's Robertson Library. Funded by Digital Museums Canada.

Confederation Centre

L. M. Montgomery Institute

University of Prince Edward Isalnd

Digital Museums Canada

  • The Manuscript
  • The Author
  • The Writing Process
  • Montgomery’s Island
  • Anne’s Legacies
  • Resources & Links
  • Credits
  • Contact Us
  • Sitemap

© 2025 Confederation Centre of the Arts: All Rights Reserved.

Scroll To Top