Articles

The composite photograph seen here was published as a postcard in 1916 to commemorate the centennial of the first Roman Catholic mass celebrated in Sherbrooke.

Monseigneur Antoine Racine, the first bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sherbrooke, was born in Saint-Ambroise-de-la-Jeune-Lorette, near Quebec City, in 1822. He received his early education from an uncle, who was a priest in a nearby parish.

Nestled in the hills not far from the Canada-U.S. border at East Hereford is the tiny hamlet of Saint-Venant-de-Paquette. Saint-Venant, or Paquetteville, as many of the locals still call it, has a population of 111, making it one of the smallest municipalities in the Eastern Townships. It is also, arguably, one of the most pretty.

"In a civilization more and more mobile, loud-sounding and speaking, zones of silence become a vital necessity. So monasteries more than ever are called to be haunts of peace and interiority. Never let internal or external pressures affect your traditions and your means of recollection.

To enter the Musée du patrimoine Louis-Emile-Beauregard in Dudswell, Quebec, is to enter a land of Lilliputian delight. Take a trip to yesteryear and visit the miniature world of Louis-Émile Beauregard, where, as the brochure proclaims, "your amazement is guaranteed."

Anyone interested in fine architecture and history will love Stanstead. Located on the American border just opposite Derby Line, Vermont, Stanstead was created in 1995 out of the former "Three Villages" of Stanstead Plain, Rock Island, and Beebe Plain.

FOUR-SEASON RESORT

A hundred and twenty years after it was built, and twenty-five years after it was by-passed, the covered bridge over the Fitch Bay Narrows is still standing.

Located at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, the township of Dudswell was first inhabited around 1800, in the area of Bishopton. About 1824, the area surrounding Marbleton, nestled around a small lake in a luscious green valley, expanded with the mining of calcium deposits, which drew an influx of Francophones.

The towns hug the river bank along the St. Francis. It almost doesn't matter what direction one takes to come to this once bustling railroad community -- the view from the hills as the traveller approaches Richmond or Melbourne is spectactular.

Any outing to the northeastern part of the Townships (the Hautes-Appalaches region) would be incomplete without a visit to Kinnear's Mills. Off the beaten track about 20 km northeast of Thetford Mines, this little hamlet is located at the heart of a hilly region in the Osgood River valley.

There's more than meets the eye at the Archives of the Missisquoi Historical Society.

The letter was addressed to Mrs. N. Nicholson, Richmond, Quebec. It read: "Dear Mrs. Nicholson. Do you feel that breakfast seems incomplete without a bread of some sort? Just break open a biscuit made with Crisco." This was ad copy, I realized, despite the header "Mac Rae Bros. Pure Food Products." "Notice its sweet appetizing aroma.

(Continued from Tighsolas: House of Light, Part 1: An Intimate Glimpse into the World of a Turn-of-the-Century Townships Family) Do you believe in magic? If only the magic of the Internet.

"From 1869 to 1948 more than 100,000 children were immigrated from Great Britain to work on farms in the rapidly growing rural communities across Canada.

Lake Memphremagog is one of the jewels of the Eastern Townships. Reputedly Abenaki for "Beautiful Waters," or less romantically "the Great Pond Place," Memphremagog is blessed with some of the most stunning scenery in the region. The lake stretches 27 miles (44 km) from below Newport, Vermont in the south, all the way up to Magog, Quebec in the north.

Located near the eastern shore of Lake Memphremagog, on Davis Road in the municipality of Ogden, Marlington Bog is a rare sphagnum wetland, or peat bog, of about 30 acres (12 hectares) in area.

The Cherry River Marsh, or Le Marais de la Rivière aux Cerises, as it is known officially, today constitutes one of the most important wetland areas in the Lake Memphremagog watershed. It is also a site that is growing in popularity as a place to walk and to appreciate the beauties of nature.

In 1976, I got my first full-time summer job as a member of the Memphremagog Conservation Patrol. I was sixteen years old. I had worked on the patrol as a volunteer for a few days during the two preceding summers, making $5.00 a day the first year and $7.00 the second.

Situated midway as the crow flies between Saint-Herménégilde and East Hereford, Mount Hereford is tucked away in the extreme southeast corner of the Eastern Townships. At 864 metres (2,835 feet), the summit of Mount Hereford has a panoramic view of the countryside in all directions.