The Anne That Ate P.E.I.

No one embraces Anne as tightly as the Japanese, who were introduced to Montgomery's 1908 novel when Canadian missionaries gave a copy to a former student just before World War II. The woman translated the story of the orphan who was taken on as a farmhand under the mistaken belief that she was a boy, and something clicked.

For decades, the book has been a staple in Japanese classrooms and bookstores, better known there than in its native country. A theory, espoused in more than one scholarly tract, is that Japanese females, especially, admire Anne because she has it both ways -- being a bit of a high-spirited rebel while ultimately remaining true to the traditional values of her homeland.

Today in Japan, there are Anne fan clubs (one of which created a 350-pound model of the Green Gables house -- in sugar), a line of Japanese homes modeled on the original Green Gables, and an Anne bed-and-breakfast in Osaka. Planeloads of Japanese tourists arrive in P.E.I each summer to pay homage to "Akage no An," or Red-Haired Anne. The Anne-quests are so popular that menus at some harborfront restaurants in the island's capital are printed in Japanese.

Having no preteens (or Japanese) among us, we steer as clear as we can from all-things-Anne. Not that it's so difficult -- on P.E.I, one is never far from a quiet corner. We find refuge less than a mile from the Green Gables house, along the red-sand beaches of Prince Edward Island National Park. Here, away from the water, lucky visitors might spot red foxes and other endangered species. Offshore, the Gulf Stream delivers some of the warmest water north of the Carolinas. And there's not an Anne memento in sight.

Along the Waterfront

Another day, we head east from our base in Charlottetown to Montague, where my father and his family lived. Distances are funny on P.E.I, very un-Canadian. What looks like a long journey on a map is only about 30 miles, and we're there in about 40 minutes. Indeed, almost every place on the island can be reached by car within an hour from the capital.

Our expectations are not high. Montague was a faded shipbuilding center even in the 1920s, when my father was there, populated largely by Scottish immigrants like his father. There still isn't much there, although the town is one of the biggest on the island, with about 1,800 residents. You could drive through it and scarcely realize it.

All the same, we are pleasantly surprised to find a recently restored riverfront, complete with a prosperous-looking marina and boat captains offering seal-watching tours. At a waterfront restaurant, my mother and I devour bowls of plump, tender mussels that clearly enjoyed happy childhoods in the surrounding waters. Lunch for the four of us comes to $20-something.

The town, also bolstered by a renowned golf course nearby, gives off the whiff of a place that has managed a modest turnaround. An official at a regional museum in town allows as much, although she won't presume to boast (not unlike a certain relative who rose from these roots). Though we have no enduring connection to the place, it's good to see that it's doing all right.

Even when we return to Charlottetown -- the province's biggest town by far, with about a third of the island's 142,000 residents -- the sense of quiet remains.

The historic center is a snow globe of a place, a town under glass, with Victorian streetscapes leading to a gentle harbor at the foot of the hill.

Along a main street, an old man in shorts and socks sits on the steps outside his shabby-yet-chic rowhouse, doing a crossword puzzle. He's in the same spot, still working on a clue, as night falls about three hours later. There's little but a fresh breeze off the water to break his concentration.

In the town center, a marquee advertises a Gordon Lightfoot revue, featuring renditions of the Canadian singer's hits. Apparently the capital isn't big or hip enough to rate an actual visit from the aging balladeer.