Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

CHARLOTTETOWN — Jack Hutton looks like a scholar — with his bushy eyebrows, braces and bent posture that makes him appear as if listening or speaking with quiet authority.

He and his wife Linda Hutton-Jackson were among similar company last week as they received a rare award for their Bala Museum from Prince Edward Island Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry for “what we have accomplished with our little museum over the last 32 years.”

The house of Huttons combines the history of Bala with one of its most famous cottagers, Lucy Maude Montgomery who wrote ‘The Blue Castle.’ one of her famous series’ most popular books in visiting one summer.

More than 150,000 Anne Shirley fans worldwide (40 countries) have made the pilgrimage to the tiny west Muskoka village over those decades — including many from Charlottetown where the fictional home of Anne of Green Gables is a landmark.

As Anne’s is the East Coast island’s biggest tourist attraction — the same could be said of the Huttons’ home in Bala.

While Jack and Linda have visited the quaint East Coast cottage setting at least a half dozen times, “an incredible thing happened (June 23)” their last time, he said.

“We received an award from the Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Island, for what we have accomplished with our little museum over the last 32 years.”

The 2024 L.M. Montgomery Institute Legacy Award.

“The conference was a once-every-two-years event organized by the L.M. Montgomery Institute, which is attached to the university in Charlottetown. The top L.M. Montgomery scholars and kindred spirits were there from 16 countries (more than 100 at the banquet), but we were amazed to be asked up to the stage at the final banquet to receive the award from the Lieutenant Governor.

“No other museum got an award.”

The Huttons were last at out east for the event in 2008 when they premiered their video version of a 1919 Anne movie.

It’s a great story Jack will no doubt be able to share and regale fans of his music July 12 when he makes yet another return engagement at the Gravenhurst Opera House for his now annual — and “always last” gig with another great line-up of musicians.

The citation read:

The L.M. Montgomery Institute Legacy Award is presented for outstanding lifetime contributions in building Montgomery scholarship and/or public engagement. With appreciation to Beth Cavert for preparing the citation.

Tonight it is a great pleasure to announce that the recipients of the 2024 L.M. Montgomery Institute Legacy Award are Linda Jackson- Hutton and Jack Hutton.

Linda Jackson-Hutton and Jack Hutton have made Bala, Ontario, a must-see destination for all admirers of L.M. Montgomery.

Through their own labour, “sweat equity,” and resources, they have re-stored and preserved a place that the author loved and in which she found rest, beauty, and inspiration for her popular novel, The Blue Castle.

Yet, it was Anne of Green Gables that launched Linda and Jack into this unexplored realm of Montgomery’s work.

Following their honeymoon to Prince Edward Island in the summer of 1990 and immersion into Anne’s world, they returned home to Bala to discover that Dr. Mary Rubio had been inquiring about a two-week vacation that L.M. Montgomery Macdonald and her family spent in Bala in 1922. At the end of a phone call with Rubio, Linda decided they would buy the old Tree Lawn house where the Macdonalds took their meals and make it into a private museum, featuring L.M. Montgomery and the Bala community of the 1920s.

After two hard years of restoration, they launched “Bala’s Museum With Memories of Lucy Maud Montgomery.’ Four-hundred guests heard keynote speaker Rubio at the official opening on July 24, 1992.

The museum has been open for 32 years since then, delighting more than 150,000 visitors from more than 40 countries. Linda and Jack have become life-long friends to many of these visitors. The Bala Museum was awarded a Heritage Designation from the Township of Muskoka Lakes in 2013.

Linda has carefully curated and vetted the hundreds of items in the restored Tourist Home museum. Visitors will see a cream and green vintage kitchen with working appliances and rooms that contain one-of- a-kind items like a detailed doll house replica of Green Gables, a large collection of early, first, and foreign editions of Montgomery’s books, and a silver tea set that belonged to the Macdonald family.

The Huttons wrote and published a beautifully-designed book, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Bala: A Love Story of the North Wood, for Blue Castle Fans, highlighting their careful research in to the connections between Maud’s book and the Bala community.

Jack and Linda have sleuthed out possible locations in the area found in Blue Castle as well as context for its characters.

In 2008, to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Anne’s publication, the Huttons created and premiered their re-enactment of the long-lost 1919 Anne of Green Gables silent movie for the LMMI conference attendees. Linda read from the original script alongside images from the movie while Jack, a highly-acclaimed ragtime artist, provided the dramatic piano accompaniment.

In July 1997 they conducted their annual celebration for the arrival of the Macdonald family in Bala. Their guest of honour was Montgomery biographer, Mollie Gillen. The 300 guests gave Mollie a standing ovation for her contributions and for locating and saving the letters from the author to George MacMillan.

It was the first time Gillen had experienced public recognition; she said to Jack, “Thank you for making a fuss over me.”

Linda and Jack make a fuss over everyone, and now is the time to make a fuss over them. Their perseverance and enthusiasm as museum hosts and their indefatigable support of L.M. Montgomery’s international legacy has been a boon to tourists, neighbours, friends, and scholars everywhere.

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