My Journey to "Avonlea"

My trip to find "Avonlea" started on Sept. 11, 2002. I explored a little bit of Toronto that day and night. The next day, I headed up to Uxbridge, Ontario. This is where the series Road to Avonlea was filmed over a period of seven years. Some of the scenes from Anne of Green Gables were also filmed here. My mission that day was to find the former set of RTA. I knew it was located on a particular road, but didn't know the exact location. I was told that the driveway was still red, and that I shouldn't miss it because of that fact. I did finally find it, and to my surprise, the owners of the property were having a yard sale. I took that opportunity to drive down their driveway (which was Main St. in the series) to get a closer look. I really wasn't interested in the yard sale items, and I made this clear right off. I asked the owners if they would allow me to take a few pictures, and they didn't mind. Now, there really isn't too much left to photograph, since all of the sets that were built for the show have been long removed, but the original "King" house and barn were real buildings, so that is what I photographed. For a moment, I felt I was standing in Lucy Maud's Avonlea.

After taking a few snapshots, I walked back to where the yard sale was and thanked the owners. This quick thank you turned into almost an hour's worth of conversation about the series and what it was like to live on the set. Here are a few things I learned that day:

Jackie Burroughs is a heavy smoker, and would be constantly smoking when they were not filming

Sullivan's contract with Disney required him to have a certain percentage of American actors in the series. This is why there were so many special guest stars.

One of the sets buildings was used as a guards station and was manned almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The "King" barn was also used for filming Mag Ruffman's "Anything I Can Do" show.

Mag Ruffman would wear a snow suit underneath her set clothes in the winter.

On at least two occasions, the crew had ordered out for food, and when they returned, everyone had left because they had finished the filming (and according to union rules, when you're done, you're done). One of the occasions they ordered chinese takeout where the bill came to $600.00!

The interior set of the King house in RTA was actually modeled after the interior of the real farmhouse used to depict the exterior.

The owners wife and daughter were used as extras in the episode Aunt Janet Rebels. They were workers at the cannery, and can be seen to the right of Janet as she's speaking to the workers.

Sullivan Entertainment re-sided the farmhouse after a shoot a few years ago because they had built a facade onto the back, and it was cheaper to re-side the whole house than try to match the original color.

Other Info:

In order to save money in filming Happy Christmas Miss King, Sullivan used cotton batting instead of real snow in one of the scenes. To make the snow look dirty, they put salt on it. After the shoot, there was a heavy rain and several trees died from the salt. Sullivan had to replace the trees, and ended up paying more in damage than it would have cost to use real snow. (this information given to me by a worker at the Pickering Village Museum)

The church next to the cemetery where Mathew is buried has a vertical board running down the side next to one of the windows. This can be seen in AOGG, but not in my photo on the web site. This is where the building was joined together after it had been moved in two pieces to the Westfield Heritage Village.

To create the illusion of being in P.E.I, photo doubles were dressed in the appropriate costumes and filmed from a distance or from behind for episode specific transitional sequences. For example, The opening sequence from "Old Lady Lloyd" (the King Family travelling in a wagon with the ocean in the background)was all shot in P.E.I with photo doubles. The first scene with actual actors doesn't occur until the wagon pulls up beside the church. This scene was shot at the Pine Grove Church in Uxbridge. The principal actors never filmed scenes in P.E.I. Therefore, every time you see a character near the ocean, you are actually watching a photo double. Some beach and travelling scenes were shot using Lake Ontario as background but this didn't happen until Season 5.

Did you know ever notice in Road to Avonlea that the buildings used for the Wilton & Straub Publishing Agents are different? According to Dan Mathews, Production Assistant and Location Manager for Sullivan Entertainment, "We would have changed the location of Wilton & Straub for scheduling purposes. We were always "under the gun" to complete each episode on time and on budget, so we often had to find locations that worked for both the schedule and the script. For instance, in Lady and the Blade, the Hotel and Publishing office were on the same street, therefore we could shoot both locations without having to move the entire unit."

Also according to Dan, when the crew was shooting scenes for High Society, "Although it was very cold while we were filming in Port Hope, there was very little snow. In order to cover the streets with snow, we had dumptrucks and loaders bring snow from arenas and parking lots and spread it on the streets. We started dumping snow at 4:00 AM and everything was ready by 7:00 AM. We filmed the scenes over the course of an hour and then removed all of the snow from the streets. While the snow was being removed, the entire shooting crew moved to the Penryn Estate (which was portraying Kingsport Ladies College) to film for the rest of the day."

Anne of Green Gables Movie Club trivia

The boat that Anne is on in the opening scenes of Anne: The Continuing Story is actually a period steamship called the Segwun. The Segwun calls the Muskokas area home which is a considerable distance from the Prince Edward Island location seen in the film. To film the boat a second unit photography crew along with Kevin Sullivan followed the Segwun around in another boat. The actual Prince Edward Island shoreline was then intercut with the filmed boat scenes to create the final product.

Every time the Road to Avonlea crew needed an exterior shot of the King's house, the set dressers had to re-dress the house. The more modern items around the house that belonged to it's owners had to be removed and then put back once the shot was done and this went on a few times a week for over seven years. Some of the items involved were lawn furniture, exterior light fixtures, storm windows and anything else that would be out of place in the town of Avonlea.

The covered bridge on main street in the town of Avonlea was built on a track to allow equipment trucks to move in and out of the town set. When shooting, the bridge was moved back into place and the ramps were lowered. Set dressers then had to place gravel around it to make it look as if it had never moved. The bridge became especially problematic in winter when it was caked with ice. Blow torches had to be used to remove the ice and snow from it so that it could move and it still took at least four people to move it.

The pond in Avonlea took a lot of work to become skateable. The special effects crew had to use snow blowers and shovels to first clear up ice and to then make it safe and skateable, it had to be flooded a number times.

During the shooting of the season 4 Road to Avonlea episode, Moving On, the weather wasn't co-operating. Part of it was shot in one location and the other was shot later in another location and between the two shoots a thaw had turned the area into mud. Fake snow had to be created for the scenes and power washers had to be brought in to clean the equipment. All the heavy equipment was so mired in mud and that it had to be winched using a big crane.

In the Road to Avonlea episode called Fathers and Sons, Felix comes across a seaside building that he dreams about opening as his own tea room. The building used in the episode was found in Pickering, Canada on Lake Ontario and was actually a condemned cottage. Because the shoreline was eroding, the house was condemned and about to be bulldozed. The production crew had to hold up the demolition and fix up the house for Felix's dream by putting a veranda on it and cleaning it up. Just two days after shooting, the cabin met its sad end and was bulldozed. Also, at the very same location, just down the beach from condemned cottage was where the scene from Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story was filmed in which Gilbert proposing to Anne on the beach.

The dock scenes from Anne: The Continuing Story and also from the Return of Gus Pike episode of Road to Avonlea were both filmed in same location, at Pier 28 in the Toronto harbour. In order to hide the modern boats and warehouses, two period boats were used, the Empire Sandy which was a sailing ship, and a ferry called the Oriole. Since the pier is located in the bustling downtown of North America's fifth largest city, a very narrow window was created with horses, set dressings and period vehicles being strategically placed to conceal the modern buildings in the background.

It’s always a challenge working with animals on set and can sometimes even be dangerous, as it once was on the set of Road to Avonlea. A scene was being worked on that required a horse and buggy to drive through the shot. The horse wrangler was sitting in the buggy awaiting his cue and all seemed peaceful enough. Suddenly, the horse was spooked by a sudden movement nearby and took off at a gallop, heading straight for one of the cast trailers. At the last second, the horse veered to the right, missing the trailer by inches but the buggy was not spared. It hit the trailer full force and was completely destroyed. Fortunately the wrangler was not seriously injured. He was sent to the hospital with a slight concussion but returned to the set shortly afterwards.

Shooting Road to Avonlea in the winter was quite challenging. It was not uncommon for snowstorms to hit the night before or even the day of a shoot, making getting around the 300 acre Avonlea village set quite difficult. If a heavy snowfall took place before a shoot, the Locations Department had to call in plows and sanders to clear the snow before the crew arrived. The unit was usually expected to be "hot and ready" by 5:00 AM, so the plows often had to work all night to clear the snow. Then, once the snow stopped, it was very important to keep people from walking or driving where they shouldn't in order to keep the snow looking pristine. The shows were shot out of sequence, so it was always a challenge to keep the snow looking the same from one scene to the next.

Filming train sequences was always very challenging. For instance, in the Road to Avonlea episode Return to Me, the train sequences are a combination of stock footage and a set built in studio that was shaken by crew members to simulate a moving train. The scenery that is seen out the windows was shot by a 2nd unit crew on a camera car on a road along the shores of Lake Ontario near Oshawa, Ontario.

One of the most famous scenes in Anne of Green Gables is the when Anne floats down the river as a Lilymaid. Although it may appear as if she is floating down the tranquil river alone, she is actually surrounded by crew members. When filming, they were having trouble getting the boat to go in the right direction. One crew member had to push the boat while another pulled the boat with a rope. The close-up shots of water seeping into the boat were actually shot by the shore and the boat was tilted to allow more water to seep in.

© Avonlea Treasures