Prince Edward Island is either forest or farmland for the most part. Charlottetown, the largest town on the island, isn't really very big.

What makes Prince Edward Island so unique is its principal industry: Anne of Green Gables.

Anne of Green Gables is a novel, or rather it is a series of novels about a feisty red-haired girl named Anne who is raised by an elderly brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm—and her subsequent adventures growing up and getting married.

The novels all were written by the same person, Lucy Maude Montgomery, and covers the period before, during and after World War I. The books have become a classic series, especially for a certain age of girls, who tend to envy the life Anne led—including her romance and eventual marriage to the boy who for a time tormented her in school.

And Anne had a tendency to turn ordinary places into magic ones. An ordinary pond, for instance, becomes the Lake of Shining Waters, even though probably only Anne sees it this way.

The Green Gables, the name of the house where Anne lived, is on a farm and the author of the stories pretty much fashioned her fiction from what was around her and from her own life.

And if you go to Prince Edward Island that's pretty much what you'll see. In fact, you can see most of the things pictured in the novels. That includes what is reputed to be the Lake of Shining Waters, the farmhouse where Mrs. Montgomery lived and presumably the inspiration for Anne's Green Gables.

But Prince Edward Island's involvement with the stories doesn't end there. The whole island is replete with Anne of Green Gables dolls, mugs, china, tea towels—you name it, it will be somewhere. It's difficult to escape from Anne no matter where you go on Prince Edward.

Most visitors, of course, make a pilgrimage to the farm. Some pay for a carriage ride past the Lake of Shining Waters.

But perhaps the most unusual, not to say bizarre fall out from the stories, has been their influence on Japanese girls of a certain age. This came about through a curious set of circumstances.

After World War II when Americans occupied Japan, they made efforts to reform the Japanese high school curriculum. Among these was the introduction of some American books—well, actually Canadian—authors. One of these was Lucy Maude Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables.

The story became immensely popular. Generations of Japanese girls have by now been raised on the books and each year thousands of Japanese girls make the pilgrimage to Prince Edward Island from Japan, a not inconsiderable journey, to pay homage to the author.

It's not unusual to find a bus load or two of them somewhere in Charlottetown, breezing through the shops in search of Anne mementoes.

But what is even more strange is that dozens come to the farm to get married, just as did Lucy Maud Montgomery's heroine.

We happened to see one such couple when we were there. They had just been wed in the front parlor of the fabled farmhouse and were then carried around the reputed Lake of Shining Waters in a horse drawn carriage before getting in their rental limo for a trip back to their hotel.

Whether their fate after marriage is like that of Anne or of Lucy Maude Montgomery has never been a subject of study. Anne had various vicissitudes that make up the remainder of the novels in the series.

Lucy Maude married a clergyman, but their marriage was brief. He suffered a fatal illness. She remained a widow the rest of her life. The novels were a success, though none were as successful as Anne of Green Gables.

Unfortunately for Lucy Maude much of the money it made went to the publisher. In succeeding books the author renegotiated her contract and much improved her income. Most readers, however, think the later books not so filled with life and enthusiasm as the signature story.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Rose Garden Resident.