Whitby Free Prese, Wednesday, JuIy 24, 1996, Page 7' i I I At the age of 36,. Lucy Maud married in the parlour of a cousmn's farmhouse. She then moved te Ontario and spent many year near Uxbridge, Ont. where her husband was a minister. If you look hard enough, you can find a commemorative plaqué to note that fact. The television show was also shot largely near Uxbridge, but that's only because it looked more like Avonlea than Cavendish. That's because Cavendish today more resembles a tourist trap. That includes, understandably, cottages and motels and restaurants and shops. The touriste, who swell the island population from 130,000 te ovèr 300,000 have te eat and sleep somewhere. The teurist strip includes a wax museum kitý, corner from Green Gables, Ripley's Believe It or Not, several Theme parks, dozens of overprioed gift shops, mini golf greens, and ail the other garish trashthat gete vacationers reaching for their Interact carde. Little of this has anything te do with dear old Lucy Maud or Anne. But once you spend the Mixdbllars a family tn tour Green Gables, what're'you gonna do? (Green Gables used te be free, but fedéral government cutbacks have killed that). Anne did not create island tourism. The book Green Gables refers te rich American touristâ one hundred yeare ago. There is no doubt however, that Anne ie the dominant theme in tourism teday. She eppears on island licence plates, her effigy jumpe out from every gift shop, her character lends grace te the attractions. Rainbow Valley, Matthews Market, Marilla's Pizza, you get the idea. The original farm that once surrounded the Green Gables house is now a golf course called -- what else? - Green Gables. From the licence plates, one sees the island's draw te be mainly Canadian: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland, with numerous American plates, especially from the eastern seaboard. Those plates don't tell of the international attraction Anne holds. Each year thousands 0f Japanese visit the sland, te visit Green Gables as a shrine, tour the island te iee where Anne lived. Àfter the Second World War, Anne of Green Gables,' became a safe, approved book fbr leaning English. Anne becarne a saint. Tour guides tell of seeing Japanese touriste sitting on benches after the Green Gables tour; tears streaming down their cheeks. Each year fbrty Japanese weddings are held at Green Gables (whole famiies arrive for the occasion). At a wedding I attended ini Charlottetown three years ago, Japanese tourists appeared outaide the church to photograph the event for thefr vacation album. RFecording the native culture, so to speak. But it is the licence plates that tell the biggest part of the story. So far, the only way on or off the island by car ie a forty-five minute ferry ride. For me, that is part of the charm. After the completion of the fixed link (a ten-mile bridge) the island will be a ten-minute drive away fr-om New. Brunswick. If you want te see the island before it's really despoiled, youd betterury Tourist trap %Ma- h Nul These employees of the Martin Manufactuning Companiy are standing at the northeast corner of Byron, and Gilbert Streets behxnd the factery. The man third froîn the 1eti Cad Virgin- The buckle factozy was demlishedmin1966ad<"letSretwscoe 0yinrClatde te build the Price Chopper plaza.ad'ibr tetws lsd1 er ae Whitby Archivephoto 10 YEAR from the Wednesday, Jul WBITBY FM 0 A gunman held up the Bank of Montreal ai 0 Whitby Psychiatric Hospital is decentralizir patient care. a Naturaliets are opposing a proposed goj Conservation Area.-' 0 Oshawa is blocking plans for extra regional 35 YEARL from the Thursday, July5 WfflTY WEE 0 An addition to the Whitby DuPont plant wili 0 More than 300 employees of the Dunlop Tire 0 Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Stevens of Centre Street were both born on the same day at Walthi 0 The Whitby Weekly News ie moving fiim a hot North. 100 YEARLI from, the Friday, July 24, WHTYCHU a A nioonlight excursion, on the steamer Columbi is 25 cents. 0 Mayor James Rutledge, rides his bicycle at ej 0 The Preshytenian Church at Brooklin raised weather. *Many Whitby residents are taking excursions1 this summner. [y 23, 1986 edition of the> ME PRESS tBrock and Dundas Strets. rig its services te place more emphasis on out- )If course te b. built in the Lynde -Shores Icoundil seata for Whitby and Ajax. LS AGO 20, 1961 edition, of the KLY NEWS Il increase its productio n by one-third. re plant held their annual picnic on July 15. tNorth, are cebebrating their birthdaye. They lamstow, Essex, England, on July 26, 1899. )use on Burns Street East to, 153 Brock Street S1896 edition of the RONICLE )ian will beave Pint Whitby, at 7:30 p.m.Fr dght miles, an hour on'level roada. *23.50 at agar'den partydespite cold, rainy te Niagara Fails and The Thousand loiand I l'il I CAVENDISH, Prince Edward Island - This, as yu know, is the home of Anne (with an 'e') Shirley 0 Gee Gables; 0f Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who adopted her; and the teuriet industry Anne spawned. Many readers have watched the television shows also spawned, and will be quick te correct me. Anme didn't live in Cavendish; Amne lived in Avonlea. And of course, we ail know that the whole thing - teurist boom, television characters, a series 0f'novels written seventy and eighty years ago - ail sprang whole and living, from the imaginative mind 0f Lucy Maud Montgomery. .I write thie column On the kitchen table at a housekeeping cttage. From the window I can see the deep blue Atlantic Ocean. In a farmhouse (no longer -standing) lees than a mile from here, Lucy Maud wrote Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea,,Kdmeny of the Orchard, and The Story Girl as well as hundrede 0f short steries and poems. @dMmýui