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Adapted from our recent He Said/She Said on TV, eh?

The Anne of Green Gables/Anne of Avonlea mini-series were the first Canadian productions to truly excite me as Canadian productions. Books I had loved, had literally read to death (the books’ death, not mine), were onscreen. My Canada was on screen. Not that I’d been to Prince Edward Island — that would come in the 1990s, when I included a pilgrimage to Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s grave — but the world of my childhood was onscreen, and my county was named and pictured.

That was before I cared about the state of the Canadian industry or gave a thought to why it was important to have our own stories in the mix along with Hollywood productions. But I knew it was special to see something so personal to me finally appear on my TV. I can thank Anne for many things, first for offering me a kindred spirit in my childhood and finally for opening my eyes to the power of having my own culture reflected back at me.