Anne of Green Gables Heritage Circuit, PEI

When Lucy Maud Montgomery published Anne of Green Gables in 1908, she did not expect the novel to define a place. She was drawing on the landscape she had known since childhood — the red roads of Cavendish, the farm fields running down to the sea, the woods she called the Haunted Wood, the specific house belonging to her cousins that she used as the model for Green Gables. She was writing fiction, not geography. The geography turned out to be inseparable from the fiction.

More than a century later, the landscape L.M. Montgomery described is still recognizable. The farmhouses, the red soil roads, the lupins in the fields in June, the smell of the sea behind the dunes — PEI in summer is still the island of the Anne books in ways that Montgomery herself might find astonishing. What has been overlaid on that landscape — the national historic site, the commercial Anne-themed attractions, the pilgrimage traffic from Japan (where the novel has been read by virtually every child for generations) — exists alongside the original rather than replacing it.

This guide covers the literary circuit: the sites with direct Montgomery connection, the landscape she wrote, and the way to experience both honestly.

L.M. Montgomery: who she was

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in 1874 in Clifton, PEI, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Cavendish with her maternal grandparents after her mother’s early death. She trained as a teacher, returned to Cavendish to care for her aging grandmother, and worked as a journalist and writer while she wrote the novels that would make her internationally famous.

Anne of Green Gables was rejected by multiple publishers before being accepted by L.C. Page & Company in Boston and published in 1908. It sold 19,000 copies in the first five months and has never been out of print. Montgomery went on to write seven further Anne novels, two books of Emily stories, and numerous other works, while living in Ontario (after her marriage to the Reverend Ewan Macdonald) and returning to PEI only for visits.

The paradox of Montgomery’s life is that the island that gave her voice also confined her — she spent most of her adult life on the mainland, writing about PEI from memory. The island she described in the Anne books is partly real geography and partly the idealized landscape of a woman who had left and was looking back.

Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942. She is buried in the Cavendish Community Cemetery, adjacent to the site of the Green Gables heritage place.

Green Gables Heritage Place

Green Gables Heritage Place, administered by Parks Canada within Prince Edward Island National Park, is the farmhouse that served as the model for the fictional Green Gables. The house belonged to Montgomery’s cousins (the Macneill family), and she was a frequent visitor — she knew the rooms, the outbuildings, and the surrounding landscape intimately, and drew on them directly in the novel.

The house has been restored to approximate its 1880s appearance — the period when the novel is set — with period furnishings throughout. Parks Canada interpreters in summer provide context on the novel, the historical period, and Montgomery’s life.

The surrounding landscape includes the Haunted Wood trail — the stand of spruce where young Montgomery and her cousin had convinced themselves supernatural things occurred, and which appears in the novel — and Lovers Lane, the wooded path behind the farmhouse that Anne and Diana walk in the books.

The Balsam Hollow Trail connects the farm to the woodland behind, passing through old-growth spruce that has changed little since Montgomery’s time.

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Site of L.M. Montgomery’s Cavendish Home

A few hundred metres from Green Gables Heritage Place, the Site of L.M. Montgomery’s Cavendish Home marks the location of the house where Montgomery actually grew up with her Macneill grandparents — the house where she wrote Anne of Green Gables. The original house is gone; only the foundation and garden remain.

The site is maintained by the L.M. Montgomery Land Trust and has been sensitively interpreted without reconstruction. The cellar hole of the original house, the old apple trees from the garden, and the heritage rose bushes that survive from the 19th-century garden create an evocative and more authentic atmosphere than the reproduced house at Green Gables. Montgomery is buried in the adjacent Cavendish Community Cemetery — a short walk from the site.

This site is less commercially developed than the Green Gables Heritage Place and is correspondingly more affecting for those who have read the novels and want to stand where the work was actually written.

L.M. Montgomery Birthplace and Maud’s House at New London

L.M. Montgomery’s Birthplace at New London (approximately 10 kilometres west of Cavendish on Route 6) is the small house where Montgomery was born in 1874. Now a museum operated by the L.M. Montgomery Institute, it contains original period furnishings, Montgomery family artefacts, and the author’s wedding dress. The house is the smallest and most intimate of the Montgomery sites.

Anne of Green Gables Museum at Silver Bush in Park Corner (20 kilometres northwest of Cavendish on Route 20) is the farmhouse belonging to Montgomery’s aunt and uncle (the Campbells) — a place she visited regularly throughout her childhood and described in later Anne novels. The museum contains extensive Montgomery memorabilia including original manuscripts, photographs, and personal correspondence.

Park Corner is a lovely farming community on the shore of Campbell’s Pond, and the museum at Silver Bush includes the pond and surrounding garden landscape that appears in the Anne books as “the Lake of Shining Waters.”

The landscape of the novels

For readers of the Anne books, the PEI landscape is not simply a backdrop — it is a character. The red roads that Anne compares unfavourably to the white roads of Ontario. The apple orchards in bloom in June (“the white way of delight”). The dunes behind Cavendish Beach. The naming of ordinary places — the Lake of Shining Waters, Violet Vale, Willowmere — that Montgomery gave to landscape she knew in her bones.

Cycling or driving the rural routes around Cavendish allows this literary geography to become actual geography. Route 6 from Cavendish to New London to Park Corner roughly traces the circuit Montgomery walked and drove most frequently in childhood. The landscape is still primarily agricultural — potato fields, dairy farms, woodlots — with the sea visible across the dunes to the north.

June is the most Montgomeryesque month — the lupins are in bloom in the fields (Montgomery’s “orchid-purple lupins” appear repeatedly), the apple trees have just finished flowering, and the island has a quality of green-and-red-and-blue that the high summer season slightly oversaturates.

Japanese pilgrims and the Anne tourism industry

The Japanese readership of Anne of Green Gables deserves specific acknowledgement because it shapes the experience of visiting Montgomery sites in a specific way. Anne of Green Gables has been read by virtually every Japanese schoolchild for generations — not as a foreign novel but as a touchstone of childhood and an image of an idealized world. The number of Japanese visitors to the Montgomery sites in Cavendish is significant enough to have influenced the site interpretation and the commercial landscape.

This is not a negative — the Japanese visitors tend to be deeply knowledgeable about the novels and bring a serious cultural regard to the sites that enriches the overall experience. But it is worth understanding that a visit to Green Gables Heritage Place in July will include a significant proportion of visitors from Japan, Korea, and other parts of East Asia, and the multilingual interpretation reflects this.

The Montgomery circuit as a cycling day

A cycling circuit of the major Montgomery sites from Cavendish is achievable in a day:

1. Start at Green Gables Heritage Place (within PEI National Park — day pass required).
2. Walk the Haunted Wood and Lovers Lane trails.
3. Cycle or drive to the Site of L.M. Montgomery’s Cavendish Home (10 minutes west).
4. Visit the adjacent cemetery.
5. Continue west to L.M. Montgomery’s Birthplace at New London (30 minutes by bike, 10 minutes by car).
6. Continue to Anne of Green Gables Museum at Silver Bush in Park Corner (15 minutes from New London by car, longer by bike).

The return to Cavendish via Route 6 is approximately 45 kilometres of cycling in total — a comfortable day’s ride on a hybrid bike.

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When to visit the Montgomery circuit

June is the month of the lupins and apple blossoms — the landscape closest to what Montgomery described. Full heritage site programming has not yet begun at all venues; check schedules before visiting in early June.

July and August are peak season — all sites are fully staffed and open, guided tours available, and the island is at its most alive. The Green Gables site in particular is busy; mornings are less crowded.

September offers uncrowded heritage sites, pleasant cycling weather, and the island’s beautiful fall light. Most Montgomery sites remain open through late September.

October: Several sites close or reduce to weekends only. The Green Gables Heritage Place within the national park remains accessible but with reduced programming.

Related destinations

Cavendish covers the beach and family attractions in the same area as the Green Gables site. Charlottetown is 40 kilometres southeast — the island’s capital with the full context of PEI history and culture. The PEI Culinary Trail covers the island’s food culture, which runs through the same landscape the circuit traverses. Prince Edward Island provides the comprehensive island overview.

Frequently asked questions about the Anne of Green Gables circuit

Is the Green Gables house the real house from the novel?

It is the real house that Montgomery used as inspiration for the fictional Green Gables — the farmhouse of her Macneill cousins, which she knew intimately and drew on for the novel’s descriptions. It is not the house where Anne Shirley actually lived (Anne is a fictional character) and not the house where Montgomery herself grew up (that is a separate site nearby).

Do you need to pre-book visits to the Montgomery sites?

The Green Gables Heritage Place within PEI National Park requires a Parks Canada day pass or discovery pass, which can be purchased at the park entrance. The L.M. Montgomery Birthplace and the Silver Bush museum charge admission payable at the door. No advance booking is typically required for individuals.

How much time should you spend on the Montgomery circuit?

A focused half-day covers Green Gables Heritage Place thoroughly, including the Haunted Wood and Lovers Lane trails. A full day allows all four major sites — Cavendish Home site, Birthplace at New London, and Silver Bush at Park Corner — with time to cycle or walk some of the connecting rural route. Serious Montgomery readers may want two days to absorb the landscape and the archives at Silver Bush.

Is the Montgomery circuit appropriate for visitors who haven’t read the Anne books?

The sites have standalone merit as heritage buildings and landscape — the Green Gables farmhouse is beautiful in its own right, the rural landscape is genuinely lovely, and the cultural phenomenon of Montgomery’s global readership is itself interesting. But the experience is substantially enriched by having read at least the first Anne novel. The novels are short and very readable; many visitors report rereading Anne of Green Gables specifically before visiting PEI.