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I’ve lived in Alberta for most of my life, except for a few years in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
I would like to move away from Alberta one day.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a nice province with friendly people, but I am always looking to find somewhere new.
The top three places I want to live are Vancouver Island, in a cabin along a lake somewhere in Ontario and on Prince Edward Island.
Why Prince Edward Island, you ask?
In my mind I have an image of the island as a quaint place where everything is nice and quiet.
Where it is not out of the ordinary to see a horse-drawn wagon, or to walk to your neighbour’s place down the road.
I know that is not how life is on the island.
PEI is a modern place, full of modern conveniences.
But the image in my image has been shaped somewhat by a TV show I used to watch when I was a kid.
It was set in the early-1900s and followed the adventures of Sara Stanley, a young girl sent to live with her relatives on the island.
I’m Craig Baird, and this is Canadian History Ehx! and today we are on the Road to Avonlea.
For this story we must journey back to a time before the invention of television, to a woman named Lucy Maud Montgomery.
You may have heard of her.
She was a prolific writer born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island on Nov. 30, 1874.
As a coping mechanism for the loneliness of her upbringing, she created imaginary worlds and friends which developed her creativity.
By the age of 13 she submitted her first poem for publication.
It was rejected.
Not to be discouraged, she continued to hone her creative skills and writing abilities.
By 1897, her stories started to get published.
From 1897 to 1907, she had over 100 stories published.
Then, in 1908, she published her magnum opus, Anne of Green Gables.
The novel recounts the adventures of 11-year-old Anne Shirley, an orphaned girl sent by mistake to two middle-aged siblings, in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island.
This launched her into international fame.
To date, that book has sold 50 million copies and is considered a classic children’s novel.
Its popularity also helped fuel Prince Edward Island tourism for decades.
Calling Lucy Maude Montgomery, a prolific writer would be an understatement.
Not only did she write Anne of Green Gables, but she also wrote 530 short stories, 500 poems, 20 novels and 30 essays. Amid all that writing, in 1911, Lucy published The Story Girl which followed the adventures of young cousins and their friends on Prince Edward Island.
Featured in this book were the King Family, and a cousin named Sara Stanley.
Anne Shirley, the famous character from Green Gables, only has a minor role in these stories, and appeared in two of the 12.
Most of the stories are about the residents of Avonlea and its surrounding towns.
One year later, Montgomery released a collection of short stories called the Chronicles of Avonlea.
Avonlea itself was a fictional place, based on Lucy’s childhood experiences in the farming communities of Cavendish, Hunter River, and Park Corner, PEI.
In her stories, the village of Avonlea is located on a small peninsula, where the main industries are farming and lobster fishing.
In 1913, Lucy released The Golden Road, which once again focused on the King family and Sara Stanley.
A second short story collection was published seven years later in 1920 called Further Chronicles of Avonlea.
These stories further fleshed out the world of Avonlea and once again proved to be a success.
Before the concept of a cinematic universe ever existed, Lucy Maud Montgomery was writing a literary universe set on Prince Edward Island.
The success of Anne of Green Gables led to film adaptations.
As far back as 1919 when Anne Shirley first appeared on the silver screen in the silent film Anne of Green Gables.
That film took some liberties away from the source material and moved the setting from Prince Edward Island to New England.
The change infuriated Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote in her diary,
“The landscape and folks were ‘New England’, never P.E Island…A skunk and an American flag were introduced-both equally unknown in PE Island. I could have shrieked with rage over the latter. Such crass, blatant Yankeeism!”
Another film adaptation emerged in 1934, with the title role being played by Dawn O’Day, who legally changed her name to Anne Shirley.
Lucy Maud Montgomery liked this adaptation much better but still felt that Hollywood could not get her book right.
Lucy never saw another film adaptation of Anne of Green Gables because she died in 1942 and TVs didn’t become popular until the end of WWII.
Anne didn’t hit TV screens until 1952, when the BBC television series was released, and it was followed by a TV musical in 1956.
An animated Japanese version called Akage no An, meaning Red-Haired Anne, was released in 1979.
Then, in 1984, a man named Kevin Sullivan came along, and things in Avonlea would never be the same.
Kevin Sullivan was born in 1955 and loved making movies. He made his first short film, The Fir Tree, in 1979.
That same year, he established the production company, Sullivan Films.
In 1982, he released his first feature, The Wild Pony, which he co-wrote, co-produced and directed.
Two years later he used the money he made from that venture and bought the film rights to Anne of Green Gables. Once he secured the rights in 1984, he wrote a screenplay for a four-hour miniseries with Joe Wiesenfeld which aired on Dec. 1 and Dec. 2, 1985, on CBC.
, and it was a massive hit.
At the time, it became the highest-rated dramatic production in Canadian television history t and swept the Gemini Awards, winning 10 awards.
It also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program.
Megan Follows was cast in the titular role alongside Mag Ruffman, Jackie Burroughs, and Cedric Smith, who played relatively minor characters.
They may not have known it at the time, but those parts would lead to more opportunities in a few years, but we will get to that a little later….
The massive popularity and success of the miniseries resulted in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, also known as Anne of Avonlea.
This story was also highly successful and beat out the original miniseries to become the highest rated drama to ever air on Canadian television. It also won six Gemini Awards.
These two successful miniseries proved that there was an appetite for Lucy Maud Montgomery’ stories so Kevin Sullivan turned his sights away from Anne of Green Gables and towards Sara Stanley and the King family.
For the next few years, Kevin Sullivan wrote a show that, in his words, was set in a place with a strong sense of morality that no longer existed.
An antidote for escapism from the contemporary world which men, women and children could all enjoy.
To craft the series, Kevin loosely based the stories on the novels The Story Girl and The Golden Road, both of which feature the character of Sara Stanley and the King family.
Early episode plot points also came from the Chronicles of Avonlea and the Further Chronicles of Avonlea.
Sullivan said,
“The series is drawn from much different material than Anne of Green Gables. It is kind of like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon Days. Montgomery was a precursor to Keillor writing about small-time life but in a Maritime community.”
The series became Road to Avonlea.
(small beat)
It was co-financed by the CBC and The Disney Channel.
In Canada the series was known as Road To Avonlea but in the US, it would air as only Avonlea.
As you can probably tell by the title the series was set in the fictional town of Avonlea, during the first decade or so of the 20th century and despite the enormous success of Anne of Green Gables, Anne Shirley never appeared on the show, beyond a few mentions of her name by other characters.
In this story, Sara Stanley, a ten-year-old heiress from Montreal is sent to live with her aunts on Prince Edward Island after her father is arrested on embezzlement charges. Her mother had died prior to the series’ first episode.
In many ways, it begins as a fish out of water story as Sara Stanley must adjust to rural farm life on Prince Edward Island, having grown in the lap of luxury in Canada’s largest city at the time.
Sara Polley was cast as Sara Stanley,
She was an up-and-coming young actress who first appeared on film when she was four in the film One Magic Christmas, and in the Friday The 13th – TV series.
In 1988, she had a prominent role in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Polley was becoming a household name before she stepped into Sara Stanley’s shoes.
Jackie Burroughs was cast as Hetty, Sara’s aunt and the eldest King sibling. Burroughs had started acting at the Stratford Festival in the 1960s and had various film credits including in The Dead Zone and Heavy Metal. One of the most established of the actors in the series at the time of the premiere, she had won a Genie Award for her film A Winter Tan in 1987.
Mag Ruffman was cast as Olivia, the youngest King sibling. At the time, Mag had appeared in only small roles in film, and on television, apart from her time in the Green Gables movies.
Alec King, the middle King sibling, was played by Cedric Smith. Originally a folk singer in the 1970s, he began acting but had minimal roles outside the Green Gables movies.
Alec’s wife Janet was played by Lally Cadeau, who had been acting since she was 10 in plays. She had appeared in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome in 1983 and had various roles in television including the King of Kensington and Street Legal.
Rounding out the rest of the cast of children who played Sara’s cousins were Gema Zamprogna as Felicity King, Zachary Bennett as Felix King, and Harmony Cramp as Cecily King.
Tara Meyer was originally given the role of Felicity King but due to a scheduling conflict, it went to Gema Zamprogna instead.
Meyer went on to play Sally Potts, Sara’s classmate and sometime rival in 13 episodes of the series.
While the series was set on Prince Edward Island, the show was primarily shot near Uxbridge, Ontario. This was the same location that the Anne of Green Gables miniseries used.
And although some filming took place on Prince Edward Island, Uxbridge was also where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived and worked for a decade after moving from Prince Edward Island.
If you’re familiar with the series, you might remember that the dirt roads on the show were red.
That’s because PEI’s soil is rich with iron, so to match, the show painted the roads in Uxbridge red for the show.
Show creator Kevin Sullivan said,
“We just decided that if we were going to be totally authentic, why go through all the trouble of creating all these authentic building if you couldn’t make the rest of the landscape look as real. So, we decided that we would spray paint the roads.”
and authenticity came at a price.
To the tune of $15 million for the first 13-episode season making it one of the most expensive shows on Canadian TV.
The series debuted on Jan. 7, 1990, on CBC, and it quickly became apparent that the country was still enamored with the works of Lucy Maud Montgomery.
A record 2.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the first episode, which made it the most watched series premiere in Canadian history at the time.
And it wasn’t just popular, it was also critically acclaimed, Mike Boone of the Montreal Gazette wrote,
“Bright sunshine, rolling verdant hills, buckboards bouncing gently along country roads, who could ask for a more eye-pleasing and coxy pastoral setting. Road to Avonlea takes us back to the simple down-home comfort of Anne-land, a great place to be.”
In the second episode Jasper Dale was introduced.
For the role of the inventor and photographer with a stutter who kept to himself, producers tapped Robert Holmes Thomson.
It became the most famous role for Thomson who was already an established actor in Canada. He had been acting since the 1970s, been nominated for six Gemini Awards, winning twice, and received two Genie Award nominations.
Thomson would help make Jasper a prominent character throughout the show’s run, and a fan favourite.
Road to Avonlea was a hit and everything was going well during the first season until a sudden decision by CBC caught everyone off-guard.
(small beat)
At the time, the show averaged 1.8 million viewers each week, even outperforming Hockey Night in Canada at times.
But citing a tight budget, CBC held back the last four episodes of the show and ended the first season on March 5.
Creator Kevin Sullivan said,
“Nobody was more surprised than we were.”.
and as viewers quickly mobilized to save the show that they had come to love. Sullivan said,
“The response was so strong from the audience that I think CBC was taken aback.”
CBC quickly walked back its decision and aired what it called, “The Lost Episodes”, two months later in May 1990. This came on the heels of more good news for fans of the show because just before they aired those episodes, the show was renewed for a second season.
and for good reason… the show was a ratings hit and darling with the critics.
At the Gemini Awards on Dec. 4, 1990, the show was nominated for 10 awards, including for Best Dramatic Series.
While it lost that award to E.N.G, it did win four Geminis, including a Best Performance by an Actress for Jackie Burroughs, a category which also saw Sarah Polley nominated.
As the show prepared to debut its second season in December of 1990, some small changes were made.
Kevin Sullivan said the new season would be more than quote,
“kids in pretty dresses running through fields to school.”
The second season saw the King family with a new member, baby Daniel who was played by Alex and Ryan Floyd.
Producers also introduced f Gus Pike, a young sailor, played by Michael Mahonen, whose prominence in the show would grow over the coming seasons.
In preparation for the season premiere Kevin Sullivan said,
“In the show this year you’ll see things like kids having to go to work and lots of adventure. The shows this year are a lot more textured. The Kings have a baby and Janet is forced to help deliver it. In the season opener, Sarah is kidnapped by circus barkers. There are more life and death issues and a lot more humour.”
In a joint effort by CBC and Disney to further improve popularity, international guest stars were expected to stop by Road to Avonlea.
Including Michael York, the highly respected British actor who had appeared in films such as Logan’s Run and Cabaret. If you’re a kid of the 90’s you might remember him for his turn as Basil Exposition, a recurring part in the Austin Powers film series.
Character actor Peter Coyote also stopped by Road to Avonlea to play Romney Penhallow.
You might know Coyote as the mysterious scientist “Keys” in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.
His efforts as Penhallow earned him an Emmy nomination.
Season two premiered on Dec. 2, 1990, and it proved to be another hit.
At the year Gemini Awards, the show picked up eight Gemini nominations, including Best Dramatic Series again. Three of the five Best Writing in a Dramatic Series nominations were for Road to Avonlea, although it didn’t win.
Jackie Burroughs picked up another Gemini for her portrayal of Aunt Hetty and the show also earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Children’s Program but did not win.
Almost as soon as the second season finished on Feb. 24, 1991, CBC renewed it for a third season.
Bob Blakey of the Calgary Herald wrote,
“On the surface, Avonlea stories are too nice for their own good but even cynics are charmed by their honest and high quality. The acting is first rate, production values second to none and the writing is strong and consistent.”
The third season debuted on Jan. 12, 1992, but one person was noticeably absent.
Colleen Dewhurst, died on Aug. 22, 1991, she played Marilla Cuthbert, one of the main characters in Anne of Green Gables.
Dewhurst had long known series creator Kevin Sullivan, having appeared in his adaptations of Anne of Green Gables.
She had won two Tonys and four Emmys during her career.
Kevin Sulliven was unaware Dewhurst was terminally ill when the show went on hiatus.
As a result, her death came as a shock. To give the character a proper sendoff actress Patricia Hamilton stepped in as Dewhurst’s body double.
Scenes from Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea, as well as her death scene in the film Lantern Hill, were used to portray her death and funeral in season three.
During this season Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty and Shirley Douglas all appeared as guest stars for one episode each.
The biggest guest star was without a doubt Christopher Lloyd, who portrayed out-of-work actor and part-time con artist Alistair Dimple. Christorpher Lloyd has had an incredibly long career and you might know him as Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy or as Uncle Fester in the Addams Family.
For his role in Avonlea, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series.
[CHRISTOPHER LLOYD CLIP 19 SECONDS]
Also earning an Emmy Award nomination for her work during that third season was Kate Nelligan, who played Sydney Carver in one episode.
In Canada, Road to Avonlea once again picked up numerous Gemini Awards in 1992, earning an astounding 13 Gemini nominations, more than any other show that year.
It once again lost to E.N.G for the third year in a row for Best Dramatic Series, but won one for Best Direction, and Cedric Smith won a Gemini for his role as Alec King.
By this point, a renewal was a foregone conclusion as Road to Avonlea became the centrepiece of the so-called Family Hour on CBC on Sunday.
The show was so popular that CBC received angry phone calls from viewers whenever the show was moved in the schedule to make room for sports programming.
For that reason, the show typically ran from January to the end of March or beginning of April ensuring the season would be over by the time NHL playoffs began and avoided Sunday night conflicts with games.
As the fourth season debuted on Jan. 17, 1993, there were some who felt the show was losing its edge.
The first episode featured the arrival of Jasper Dale’s family to Avonlea, which were described as eccentric, and a sharp contrast to the King family.
Wayne Roberts, a critic with the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix stated,
“Avonlea has been a successful sequel to Anne of Green Gables but if the opening episode is any indication, the show is doomed to lose audience share.”
Roberts continued,
“These people are weird. CBC, in its press releases, calls them eccentric, but that is too kind in my opinion.”
The fourth season didn’t feature the high-caliber guest stars that previous seasons had while talented actors like Michael Hogan and Diana Rigg made an appearance, none had the name recognition of Christopher Reeve or Christopher Lloyd.
At the Gemini Awards, the show garnered only five Gemini nominations, its lowest total ever.
For the first time, it was shut out of Best Dramatic Series. However, Jackie Burroughs won her third Gemini for her role of Hetty King. It was the only Gemini win for the show that year.
And while the show didn’t have much success in Canada, it won one of its biggest awards ever when it took the Children’s Program Emmy in 1993
[PAUSE]
In preparation for season five there was an effort to return the series to Lucy Maud Montgomery’s roots.
Creator, Kevin Sullivan said,
“We are balancing the lightness with the more emotion. We could have stagnated. This season, we’re at a crossroads. A show like this can stagnate or get better.”
Season five debuted in January 1994 and Road to Avonlea remained a popular and steady fixture of the Family Hour on CBC.
The season also included guest stars such as Bruce Greenwood, Stockard Channing and Gordon Pinsent.
At the Geminis, it was a return to form for the show as it was once again nominated for Best Dramatic Series but lost to Due South. It received 12 nominations in all that year, with Lally Cadeau winning her first Gemini for her role as Janet King.
However, season five saw two major changes for the show. First, Harmony Cramp was replaced by Molly Atkinson in the role of Cecily King. The change happened after the character was sent to a sanitarium for tuberculosis treatment.
But the biggest change, by far, was Sarah Polley’s exit from the show.
Overall, the experience of playing Sara Stanley was not a pleasant one for Polley, who had to endure fame at a young age.
There was also her mother’s death.
Creator Kevin Sullivan stated,
“Sarah had been living and dealing with her mom’s illness for a long while. And Sarah is a pro. Going back to work the week after her mother died helped take her mind off things.”
In her book, Run Towards the Danger, Polley states that after her mother died of cancer, she was expected to be back at work a week later to accommodate production of the show.
In a response to Sullivan she wrote, quote:
“It sounded, from his version of events, almost as though I was given a choice. I wasn’t.”
In her book, Polley alleges that a crew member in his forties or fifties stalked her for two years, starting when she was 12.
He would follow her van home and stare at her.
Just before Christmas one year, he showed up at her house in the country when she was alone to give her gifts.
Polley nearly left the show two years earlier when producers did not renew her contract in time to meet an agreed upon deadline.
She stated that she was elated beyond measure but when her father and her agent tried to invoke the pay or play clause in her contract, ensuring she was paid regardless of appearance if the show continued, the producers picked up her contract for two more years.
Polley wrote in her book that she cried all the way home.
By the time she was 15 producers knew that she wanted off the show and wrote her out.
That resulted in Polley appearing in only five of 13 episodes, with her final spin as a series regular during the season finale. She returned for a guest appearance in season six, and in the series finale a few years later.
However, the show continued to be a success without Polley.
By the time season six debuted on January 15, 1995, Road to Avonlea had been syndicated to more than 100 countries.
And as the actors aged there was an effort to make the storylines more mature. The first episode of the season dealt with Felicity King facing sexual discrimination while trying to attend medical school in Halifax.
The series continued the tradition of famous guest stars such as Faye Dunaway and ran until April 2, 1995, as ratings remained solid, with the show averaging 1.1 million viewers each week.
At the Geminis the show picked up nine nominations, including for Best Dramatic Series, which as you probably guessed by now…it did not win.
There were also three acting nominations for Patricia Hamilton, Marilyn Lightstone and Mag Ruffman in the Supporting Actress category. with Hamilton taking home the trophy.
But everyone knew that the end was near for CBC’s powerhouse show.
There was no expectations Road to Avonlea would continue past its seventh season and before it even premiered Kevin Sullivan announced it would end and he would be moving on to a new series, called Wind At My Back.
He said,
“Road to Avonlea has had incredible inertia with a marvelous creative impetus as it has grown up, but it has reached its zenith.”
The fact that the show was only nine months from the First World War in its timeline also played into the decision.
Sullivan wanted to leave Avonlea in an idyllic setting without casualties of war.
Mike Boone of the Ottawa Citizen wrote,
“Historians have told us what Vimy Ridge meant to Canada. We will never know what such bloody battles would have done to Avonlea.”
During the last season, guest stars included Eugene Levy and a young man who played an English orphan in one episode.
That young man wasn’t famous at the time, but he sure is famous now…. because before he was the owner of his own mojo dojo casa house Ken aka, Ryan Gosling… spent some time in Avonlea.
[RYAN GOSLING CLIP 32 SECONDS]
By the time the last episode of the show aired on March 31, 1996, it was in syndication to 140 countries around the world.
At the 1997 Gemini Awards, Road to Avonlea picked up 11 nominations but once again did not win Best Dramatic Series.
Frances Bay won for Guest Role in a Dramatic Series, while Kay Tremblay won for Best Supporting Actress. Over the course of the show’s run, it picked up four Emmy Awards out of 16 nominations, and won 18 Gemini Awards, but it never took home the Best Dramatic Series Award despite being nominated every year but one during its run.
It was the show’s misfortune to run at the same time as E.N.G and Due South, two shows that won every Best Dramatic Series Gemini from 1990 to 1997.
Even though the show left the airwaves in 1996, it did return once more for a television movie called An Avonlea Christmas.
With the backdrop of the First World War, the movie follows the King family as they prepare for Christmas Eve.
We are almost at the end of our story, but I can’t move on until we find out what happened to the actors after the show ended?
Jackie Burroughs, known as Aunt Hetty went on to appear in films such as Willard, Fever Pitch and The Sentinel, as well as TV shows such as Due South, Smallville, Made in Canada and Dead Like Me.
She passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 71 on Sept. 22, 2010.
Cedric Smith who played Alec King transitioned into voice acting, while still doing live-action, from what I can see in my research his most recent acting role was in two episodes of the show Mysticons in 2018.
Gema Zamprogna who played Felicity King went to Queen’s University after the show and helped establish Toronto’s Theatrefront drama group. She began teaching Pilates in the early 2000s, and moved to Grimsby, Ontario where she became involved in the local arts scene.
Zachary Bennett who played Felix King has appeared in dozens of television shows over the past 25 years, as well as several feature films he’s most well-known for the 2016 film Maudie and more recently 2019’s The Umbrella Academy.
R.H. Thomson, who played Jasper Dale, went on to appear in several CBC Radio and CBC Television productions. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of Canada, and in 2015, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. However, you may not know that in 2008, Thomson co-created the 1914-1918 Vigil, a project that saw the names of more than 68,000 Canadians who died during the war projected onto memorials and buildings across Canada.
In a search for more information on family members who died on the battlefields he helmed an interactive documentary called Spurred on which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.
Mag Ruffman, who played Olivia King Dale went on to appear in shows such as Murdoch Mysteries and Alias Grace.
Alias Grace is an adaptation of the historical fiction novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood which fictionalizes the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Canada West. The adaptation for Netflix was written and produced by her Avonlea co-star Sarah Polley. As for Sara Polley, she starred in many feature films including The Weight of Water, The Sweet Hereafter and Dawn of the Dead.
In 2006, she directed the critically acclaimed film Away From Her, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In the 2010s, she moved away from acting and further into writing and directing.
In 2022, she wrote and directed Women Talking, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and is the first Canadian to win that award.
That is ALMOST the end of our story but…. As widely praised and beloved as Road to Avonlea was, there are some things that haven’t aged well.
During the run of Road to Avonlea, another show debuted called North of 60 which I covered t in January, so if you haven’t checked out that episode, I recommend you do.
North of 60 was a groundbreaking show that featured an Indigenous cast and dealt with Indigenous issues, something that Road to Avonlea did not.
The idyllic Avonlea glossed over and ignored the Indigenous people of PEI in fact it really didn’t include any diversity at all.
On Prince Edward Island, two per cent of the population is Indigenous, the majority being Mi’kmaq First Nations who have occupied the island for upwards of 10,000 years.
Yet, you would have been hard-pressed to find an Indigenous character walking the streets in Avonlea.
This was in sharp contrast Anne With An E. That show was also based on Lucy Maude Mongomery’s novels, but it explored First Nation history in Prince Edward Island and highlighted the discrimination Canadians of color faced in the 19th century. The show premiered in 2017 and even addressed Residential Schools.
The omission of these stories and the general whitewashing of Canadian history was addressed in an opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal in 1993, which referred to it as a “Road to Avonlea view of Canadian history.”
In her book, Run Towards the Danger, Sarah Polley added,
“Montgomery’s books are of a fictional, glorified, all-white past and millions lovingly embrace this history she put forth of the Island, accepting its erasure of the people who gave it the name that she herself liked to call it, Abegweit, a European mispronunciation of the Mi’kmaq word Epekwitk, which means “Land cradled on the waves. PEI is Mi’kmaq land.”
[OUTRO]
Information from CBC, IMDB, AnneofGreenGables.com, Wikipedia, The Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal, Red Deer Advocate, Calgary Herald, Run Towards The Danger
