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The following article was first published in THE CANADIAN HOME JOURNAL, January 1927. Originally entitled "Fair Avonlea," written by Eleanor Osborne, it paints a portrait of what Cavendish was like in the days when LMM was living in Ontario, but visiting her home province on summer vacations.

Source: The Avonlea Traditions Chronicle, Issue No. 26, Winter 1998/9

I am writing from "Green Gables"-the real bona fide "Green Gables" of the Anne stories. It is a dear old farmhouse, set so far back from the road that the dust of passing motor-cars cannot disturb its peace and cleanliness. A driveway bordered by wild rose-bushes leads to the back of the house. In front the garden slopes down gently to a ravine through which a little brook sings its way to the sea, passing en route through a pond which little Anne called the Lake of Shining Waters.

Across the brook is the Haunted Wood which Anne's childish fancy peopled with ghosts and goblins galore; and up on the hillside beyond is the little churchyard in which lie dear old Matthew and Marilla. [We're not sure what the writer is referring to here: perhaps there were "gravestones" depicting Matthew and Marilla for the benefit of tourists in the 1920s-ed.] They seemed such old friends that one day I picked a quantity of wild roses from the wayside and placed them on the graves of the kindly pair who are so realistically depicted in Anne of Green Gables.

Extending south of the house is a long lane-the "Lover's Lane" of the Anne stories-leading to hayfields and wood ands, the latter sheltering many varieties of ferns and flowers and mosses and shrubs-pink harebells, pigeon berries, ground spruce and running spruce, ladies' lips, rice lillies, etc. In a recess of the wood called Deep Hollow is the spring which is the source of the brook, and here the "Dryad's Bubble" of Anne's poetic imagination is to be found.

On the maps of Prince Edward Island this locality is called Cavendish, but everyone knows that Cavendish is L.M. Montgomery's "Avonlea"; and indeed, the Women's Institute of this district is not called the Cavendish but the Avonlea Women's Institute

The Mistress of Green Gables today is a cousin of the author, and can give a local habitation and a name to most of the incidents and characters of the Anne stories. What a fine series they are-Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside -one does not appreciate until one pays a visit to the places which form their setting. They have made Prince Edward Island famous and endeared it especially to the teenage-girl.

At a time when so much unwholesome fiction is being read by impressionable youth, Miss Montgomery's stories come like the refreshing breezes which blow over the sea-girt island in which she spent her youth.

As I write, on an August afternoon, I am sitting in a hayfield, with my back against a "coil" of fragrant, newmown hay. I feel almost a proprietary interest in that hay, for, after it was cut a day or two ago, I was permitted to sit upon a hay-rake and drive "Dolly" around the field, stepping at intervals upon the "trip" to release a mass of hay from the rake and let it fall in little furrows or "windows" on the ground.

These were soon tossed into "coils" by the sixteen-year-old son of the house, and now they are drying out in the sun. Haying is late this summer and later on the Island than in Central Canada. A walk through the fields northwards brings us to the sea, or rather to the big sand-dunes which stretch along the shore. To climb these dunes is quite a strenuous performance at first, but the climber soon develops agility and speed. The beach is a wonderful stretch of smooth, fine sand, extending four miles westward from Cavendish to New London Harbour.

I never saw so beautiful a beach in my life, except perhaps the one stretching from Hastings to St. Leonard's-on-the-sea, on the south shore of England. A little distance from Cavendish Rocks is "The Run," which is really our old friend the brook, emerging from the pond in which it had temporarily lost itself. The sea in all its moods is glorious here. If Byron had stood upon the north shore of Prince Edward Island, his famous invocation, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!" might have been even more sonorous and splendid.

Of course, the north shore of Prince Edward Island is really the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Island being generally known as "The Garden of the Gulf." The water is much warmer than that off the coast of Maine, and indeed, not much colder than that of the Muskoka lakes. When the Sea is in a gracious mood, swimming here is a pure delight; when the Sea is angry, it is almost as exhilarating to let the great breakers roll over one on the beach.

It seems rather a pity that the English, in acquiring the Island, changed the name given it by Champlain, "L'Ile Saint Jean," to Prince Edward-discarding a saint for a prince. But prettier than either the French or the English name is the Indian "Abegweit"-"Cradled on the Waves." However, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so the Island of the Gulf, whether one calls it by its Indian or French or English name, is a lovely little land. It seems a miniature England, in its profusion of wild roses and other wayside flowers, in the many indentations of its sea-washed shores, in the general "atmosphere" of the place, and in the character of the people.

Though there is a railway line extending from the north-western tip to the north-eastern point of the Island, and other lines here and there, still many sections of the country and some of the best beaches on the north shore-Brackley, Rustico, Cavendish-are a considerable distance from any railway station. However, the ubiquitous motor-car, though long excluded from the Island, solves the problem of transportation where railway service is inadequate. And dear old Dobbin is still much in evidence on the Island, holding his own against his aggressive parvenu rival. It is a bit old-fashioned-and so much the better for that-this little island province, whose kindly, hospitable folk, when they take "paying guests" in summertime, put the emphasis on the noun rather than on the adjective. "May it never be commercialized!" is the tourist's fervent prayer today.

It should be remembered, now that we are so near the Diamond Jubilee of the Dominion of Canada, that the little Island Province was the Cradle of Confederation. In the Legislative Council Chamber at Charlottetown met the first Conference which planned the union of the two Canadas and the three Maritime provinces, and prepared the way for the great Dominion which now stretches from sea to sea.

Charlottetown is proud to be one of the oldest capitals in America, older than Washington or Ottawa. Its position as such dates from 1773-ten years after the Peace of Paris which gave the Island to Britain.

Altogether Prince Edward Island is full of charm, especially to the wearied business or professional man or woman in search of rest and change. And one of the most charming spots on the Island is fair Avonlea-the land of Anne of Green Gables and of her creator, L. M. Montgomery.

The beauty of Prince Edward Island is delightfully pastoral, the sea affording the turbulent contrast needed as a setting. Curious it is that east and west, we have islands:-Vancouver Island, with its snow-crowned mountains being a Pacific sister to smiling Prince Edward Island. Each has its individual charm with a capital named for one of Britain's queens:-and none can say which has the more abiding spell. To this "right little, tight little island," the eyes of the Dominion were turned after the delightful Anne made her literary debut;-and no daughter of the island has made a nobler contribution to the province than the writer who gave us that immortal heroine.

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