Interactive map of L.M. Montgomery sites launches and you can help fill it out

The Lucy Maud Montgomery Institute has launched a new interactive map that highlights places that inspired the author's literary work like Anne of Green Gables.

The map shows the locations included in her novels like Green Gables, and places significant to the author's life, such as the Macneill Homestead in Cavendish, P.E.I., where she stayed for a period.

"The Montgomery Institute is really looking for ways to beef up those engagements with the community," said Kate Scarth, chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at UPEI.

"The finished product will provide value. Tourism operators can use it, potential tourists to P.E.I., readers can, to find out about Montgomery sites."

Islanders can help fill the map out by contacting the institute with information on specific sites that may have been important to Montgomery.

"I've had feedback already from people asking me to add things they know are very popular with Montgomery fans like different gravesites, different locations, maybe where she got engaged," said Heidi Haering, a fourth-year anthropology student at UPEI who created the map.

Fans are already submitting places tourists visit when they are on P.E.I.

"We're also really hoping that it'll be something that's useful, I guess, to tourism operators," Scarth said.

She said the institute is also hoping the map draws attention to places that aren't "obviously linked to Montgomery."

Charlottetown connections

"I'm really interested in Montgomery's connection to urban places, so the Charlottetown sites are really important," Scarth said.

She said Discover Charlottetown has been interested in the map and helping to add sites.

One of the sites people have contacted the institute about is Herman Leard's gravestone.

"He was someone Montgomery had this kind of passionate affair with," Scarth said, adding fans seem to be interested with the romantic aspects of Montgomery's life.

Haering said there is one place she is trying to map that is causing "grief."

"Hopefully it will be on the map at some point, but in her journals she mentions that she boarded at 187 Fitzroy St. I have yet to figure out where that is currently in Charlottetown."

There are a few categories included on the map like tourist destinations that include the Confederation Centre where Anne of Green Gables — The Musical plays. Another category is historic sites like buildings Montgomery is linked to and mentions in her journal, Haering said.

"We have quotes from her journal and how they relate to a specific site. We also have these inspired areas that inspired her locations in the novels," she said.

Haering is from B.C. and moved to P.E.I. from Montreal. When she came to P.E.I. she knew the novel Anne of Green Gables, but didn't know the history of Montgomery until she started reading her journals.

"It was really reading her journals that got me a lot more interested in her story and her life as a woman in a rural place like P.E.I.," she said.

In June, Haering is presenting a paper on the development of the map.

Those looking to add to the map can email lmmiassistant@upei.ca or use #MontgomeryMapPEI on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram with new location suggestions.

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