Anne of Green Gables: Montgomery's Prince Edward Island

Telling Marilla her history, Anne says: "And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia." Bolingbroke is made up, based on the real community of New London on Prince Edward Island. The author's story starts here too: Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in New London on 30 November 1874.

Location precision: The novel names only fictional Bolingbroke; the pin marks the village it is said to be based on.

On the drive to Green Gables, Matthew points out a pond and calls it Barry's pond. Anne dislikes the name at once: "I shall call it--let me see--the Lake of Shining Waters." She says she knows it is right because of the thrill a perfect name gives her. In real life the lake was inspired by Campbell Pond; the pin marks the Cavendish pond that now carries Anne's name.

Location precision: The book never places the pond on a map; the pin marks the Cavendish pond named after Anne's lake, not Campbell Pond itself.

The Cuthbert siblings, Marilla and Matthew, wanted a boy to help run their farm at Green Gables. They got Anne, and Green Gables becomes the first real home she has ever known. The fictional village of Avonlea is based on Cavendish. The real house was built in the 1830s by the MacNeil family, Montgomery's relatives, and the government of Canada bought it in 1936. Since 1985 it has been a museum of Montgomery and her novels.

Location precision: Green Gables is the novel's invented farm; the pin marks the real farmhouse that inspired it, now a museum.

Visitor guidance: Green Gables sits in the L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish National Historic Site inside Prince Edward Island National Park; an interpretive centre opened beside it in 2019.

Lover's Lane opens out below the orchard at Green Gables and runs up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. Anne named it before she had been a month at the farm. Another path is less welcome: "I can't go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla," she cries. At the real site, trails called Haunted Woods, Lovers' Lane and Balsam Hollow still bear those names.

Location precision: The book describes the lane and the wood only as parts of the farm; the pin marks the Haunted Wood near Green Gables.

Visitor guidance: The Haunted Woods, Lovers' Lane and Balsam Hollow trails are part of the National Historic Site next to Green Gables.

At sixteen Anne goes to Queen's Academy in Charlottetown to earn a teaching licence. She finishes in one year instead of the usual two and wins the Avery Scholarship. The academy is the book's own, but Montgomery herself attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown to get her teacher's licence. That college merged with St. Dunstan's University in 1969 to form the University of Prince Edward Island.

Location precision: Queen's Academy exists only in the novel; the pin marks the Prince of Wales College campus where Montgomery studied.

Montgomery said she wrote the novel in the twilight of the day, sitting at her window and looking out over the fields of Cavendish. Her grandparents' house and small farm stood immediately east of the Cavendish cemetery, at the crossing of Cavendish Road and Cawnpore Lane. Today the ruins of her homestead belong to the site that was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2004.

Location precision: Only ruins remain; the pin marks the homestead site by Cavendish Road.

Visitor guidance: The homestead ruins are part of the L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish National Historic Site.