PRINCE OF AN ISLAND by STEPHEN JERMANOK

August 21, 2001 -- CANADA'S Prince Edward Island will always be synonymous with that pony-tailed, 11-year-old girl that Lucy Maud Montgomery made famous in her 1908 book, "Anne of the Green Gables."

The Green Gables site and Lucy Maud Montgomery's home are the top two attractions tourists visit when they make their pilgrimage to this banana-shaped island in northeastern Canada.

However, there's a small group of visitors who bypass Cavendish and all its miniature golf courses and water parks. They return to Prince Edward Island (PEI) again and again to play in nature's great outdoors, heading to Kings County, the northeasternmost corridor of the 140-mile-long island.

Here, on a week-long trip in summer, you can kayak under rosy red cliffs as thick as fudge, canoe across a large bay to 200-foot-high sand dunes and bike on converted railroad beds through fertile potato farms.

A good central base is the tiny town of Mount Stewart and its four-room inn, Trailside Café. Opened in 1999, this wonderfully restored farmhouse is situated along the Confederation Trail, a 217-mile-long bike path that snakes across the island.

The inn rents bikes to guests, and also offers live jazz and folk music most nights of the week. It's a short walk from the Hillsborough River, where rolling farmland as green as billiard felt trails off in every direction.

Biking is best on a 23-mile stretch of the Confederation Trail starting at the Greenwich Dunes and ending back at Mount Stewart.

Before riding, walk up the mountain of sand and peer out across the calm waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then start pedaling along St. Peter's Bay, a large inlet inundated with mussel farms and lobster traps. On the hills surrounding the bay are potato farms, where rolled hay dots the green fields and tall grasses sway in the wind.

Most of the land has an undeveloped, bucolic feel. You can thank the potato for this. More than 60 percent of the potatoes consumed in Canada are farmed here.

In the small town of Morell, the hard-packed gravel bike trail heads inland past blueberry fields and raspberry bushes; and you can pick the fruit if you're here in mid-August.

Soon, the sinuous Hillsborough River comes into view, bordered by fields of purple lupines. Then you're back at the Trailside Café, sampling PEI oysters and potatoes in a hearty stew.

The serenity of the island can also be savored on one of its numerous waterways, in a kayak or canoe. You can join John Hughes of Outdoor Pursuits for a two-hour ride in his exquisitely handcarved 24-foot canoe, patterned on a Mi'kmaq tribe canoe. He'll take you paddling across Tracadie Bay at sunset to the windswept dunes at Blooming Point.

Remarkably, the warm currents of the Gulf of St. Lawrence are far more manageable for swimmers than the waters off the coast of Maine. You'll still shriek when you hit the water, but not as loudly. Thanks to the gulf, seafood is plentiful on the island, and some of the best can be had at the Inn at Bay Fortune. Co-owner Michael Smith, before arriving on PEI seven years ago, was a former sous chef at New York's Bouley.

His $55 tasting menu might include oyster soup, pan-roasted rainbow trout topped with tomato risotto and black olive compote, roast lamb loin, and peach, strawberry and mint compote.

Such a repast demands a morning walk. Deep into the woods of Prince Edward Island National Park, the Bubbling Springs Trail is lined on both sides by tall pines.

You'll pass a small cemetery that was created in 1851, when more than 150 fishermen from Nova Scotia and Gloucester, Mass., perished in a three-day storm now known as the 1851 Yankee Gale.

The island's powerful winds are legendary, but that shouldn't deter you from joining one of Outside Expeditions' four-day inn-to-inn sea kayaking trips around the eastern shores of PEI.

Solace at sea and pampered evenings are a winning combination. During the day, you kayak a leisurely seven to eight miles, paddling close to uninhabited land and miles of empty beach only accessible by small watercraft.

In the evening, dine on delectable blue mussels, lobster and other indigenous fare at some of the island's fine restaurants, before plopping down in a comfortable bed at an inn nearby.

Come summer, the only problem on this island is congestion. Avoid Cavendish and Anne's groupies and you can lay claim to your own slice of countryside and seashore.

* Rooms at the Trailside Café in Mount Stewart, $65 a night, (902) 676-3130; Outdoor Pursuits' canoe ride, $15, (902) 672-2000. Outside Expeditions' four-day sea kayaking trip, $975 US, (800) 207-3899. Tourism PEI, (800) 463-4734, www.peiplay.com.