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When Patty Czajka was a child in Detroit, a Canadian TV show set on Prince Edward Island captured her imagination.
She would watch Road to Avonlea with her grandmother every Sunday and was particularly enamoured of actress Mag Ruffman, who played Aunt Olivia in the 1990s series.
So when Czajka found out that Ruffman would be attending a fan convention in P.E.I. centred on the show, she had to buy a ticket.
“She was my version of a Disney princess growing up,” Czajka said Saturday at the convention.
“So I begged my husband to bring me to P.E.I. … and here I am.”
Fans of Road to Avonlea flocked to the Island from all over the world for the sold-out convention.
The award-winning Canadian series, which aired in more than 100 countries, debuted in 1990 and lasted seven seasons before wrapping up in 1996.
It followed the life of young Sarah Stanley (played by future Academy Award winner Sarah Polley), sent to live with her deceased mother’s relatives at the turn of the 20th century, and was loosely based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novels.
The three-day convention included oyster and wine tastings and panel discussions with the show’s cast and crew. Some guests also travelled around the Island to visit spots where the show filmed, as well as Montgomery’s birthplace, gravesite and the Cavendish house that inspired her most famous work, Anne of Green Gables.
“I think [the show] resonates with people who want to escape.… They want to experience something that represents values like kindness and friendship and fellowship,” said Edward Lemon, assistant director of Fine Book Fairs, which organized the convention.
“The show wrapped 30 years ago and people are still watching it, people are introducing it to their children now, and so I’m hoping that the show will continue to reach new audiences and that we can do a convention in 20 years and people will still show up.”
For Ruffman, feeling the fans’ energy during the convention was special.
“The cast and the crew … that are here have been overwhelmed by the emotion and the connection that people have to the show,” she said, adding that she hasn’t left Road to Avonlea in the past, either.
“Every once in a while I’ll think, ‘I wonder what Olivia is doing now?’ It doesn’t leave your body. You always wonder what a character that you played for a long time is up to.”
Czajka said she’s now rewatching the series with her three kids — and she’s enjoying it just as much as she did as a child in her grandmother’s house.
“It resonates with me that I can share it with my kids because there aren’t a lot of shows that you can watch with your kids in the room with you,” she said.
“It was worth an hour of your time, and that is very rare and very hard to find these days.”
