{"id":85875,"date":"2019-01-09T21:02:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wend.ca\/?p=85875"},"modified":"2020-03-15T13:41:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T17:41:29","slug":"green-gables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=85875","title":{"rendered":"That Place Called Green Gables"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like it or not, Anne of Green Gables<\/em> is as much a part of Canadian iconography as snow, hockey, maple syrup, and (unfortunately) poutine. <\/p>\n

As mentioned in a previous post, hundreds of thousands of tourists flood Prince Edward Island yearly to get a dose of Anne Shirley and see the place that inspired the book Anne of Green Gables.<\/p>\n

Green Gables Heritage Place<\/h3>\n

The Anne of Green Gables<\/em> house that people visit is actually the Macneill House<\/em>, which was once owned by Montgomery’s cousins and was the inspiration behind Green Gables. Montgomery herself grew up across the street in a homestead that no longer exists (the foundations are there).<\/p>\n

This is an extremely popular destination for Japanese tourists. Their ties to the redheaded Anne run very very deep thanks to the Japanese translator Hanako Muraoka. Muraoka was given a copy of Anne of Green Gables in 1939 and she loved and related to the book so much that she focused on translating it in secret during the Second World War in an air-raid shelter in her backyard. <\/p>\n

After the war (1952) her translation of the book was brought to young post-Second World War Japanese readers who could relate to Anne’s plight as an orphan (many became orphans during the war). Its popularity was instantaneous and explosive and the book was quickly added to the Japanese school curriculum that same year.<\/p>\n

Millions of Japanese children grew up with Anne and visiting Green Gables is a pilgrimage for many.<\/p>\n