If you have read any of L.M. Montgomery’s books, then you will know that she loved nature. In her stories, she loved to write descriptive details about nature which showed her deep appreciation for its beauty. She also often talked about the joy she found in nature in her journals. Much of the nature described in her books and journals is from her home-Prince Edward Island. Here are a few places that you need to visit on PEI if you are a nature lover!
Lover’s Lane – Montgomery loved going on walks, she specifically loved a lane near her house she called “Lover’s Lane”.
“This evening I spent in Lover’s Lane. How beautiful it was – green and alluring and beckoning! I had been tired and discouraged and sick at heart before I went to it – and it rested me and cheered me and stole away the heartsickness, giving peace and newness of life. I owe much to that dear lane. And in return I have given it love – and fame. I painted it in my book: and as a result the name of this little remote woodland lane is known all over the world. Visitors in Cavendish ask for it and seek it out. Photographs of its scenery have appeared in magazines. The old lane is famous. ” (Rubio & Waterston, 2000)
New London Lighthouse – This lighthouse is featured in the Anne of Green Gables movie & is surrounded by dunes. This quote is about the fictional lighthouse in Anne’s House of Dreams, but the description of the lighthouse matches many real ones on PEI.
“The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff jutting out into the gulf. On one side, across the channel, stretched the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long, curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves. It was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.” (Montgomery, 1972)
Montgomery Park – This park honours the legacy of Lucy Maud Montgomery with a bronze statue of her. This park also has gardens and a trail that leads to the L.M. Montgomery Cavendish Home.
“I am thankful above all else for my love of nature and my capacity for finding fullness of joy in her companionship. I would rather lose everything else I possess than that.” (Rubio & Waterston, 2017)
Lake of Shining Waters – Although the Lake of Shining Waters in Green Gables is fictional, it was inspired by the Pond near her Uncle John Campbell’s house which today is the Anne of Green Gables Museum.
“…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.” (Montgomery, 1943)
Rural PEI – Drive through the small communities of French River and New London on the North Shore of PEI for views of farmland, fishing shacks, and the ocean.
“Over a valley filled with beech and spruce was a sunset afterglow—creamy yellow and a hue that was not so much red as the dream of red, with a young moon swung low in it. The air was sweet with the breath of mown hayfields where swaths of clover had been steeping in the sun. Wild roses grew pinkly along the fences, and the roadsides were star-dusted with buttercups.”(Montgomery, 1987)
Cavendish Beach & North Rustico National Park Beach – These beaches are a must-see! They boast of beautiful sand, red cliffs, and grassy dunes. Montgomery lived close to Cavendish Beach during her childhood and frequently walked to the shore.
“The Cavendish Shore is a very beautiful one; part of it is rock shore, where the rugged red cliffs rise steeply from the boulder-strewn coves. Part is a long, gleaming sand shore, divided from the field and ponds behind by a row of rounded sand dunes, covered by coarse sand-hill grass.” (Montgomery, 2018)
References:
Montgomery, L.M. Anne of The Island, Farrar, Straus $ Giroux, Inc., 1943.
Montgomery, L.M. Anne’s House of Dreams, McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1972.
Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. Franklin Classics, an Imprint of Creative Media Partners, 2018.
Montgomery, L.M. The Story Girl. Bantam Books Inc., 1987.
Rubio & Waterston, The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years, Oxford University Press, 2017.