Articles

"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.

On Saturday, August 22, 2009, at La Providence Hospital in Magog, Muriel Ball Duckworth, died peacefully, at the age of 100, surrounded by her children. Mrs. Duckworth had fallen and broken her leg shortly after arriving in Austin for her annual summer visit. She was a descendent of Nicholas and Phebe Austin, the founder of Bolton Township.

June 27, 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kay Kinsman. This artist of international repute will be remembered not only in Lennoxville and Montreal, but also in the many other parts of the world which had the pleasure of playing host to this unique lady.

Like most people, I never paid much attention to cemeteries when I was young. I would see them alongside roads in travels with my parents and I knew that I had ancestors buried in some of them. But in general, cemeteries were places for kids to avoid.

It was mid-November and the sky overhead was a brilliant shade of blue when we arrived at the Sherbrooke home of our guide for the day, Isabell MacArthur Beattie.

(Continued from On the Trail of the Scots, Part 1)

EUROPEAN TRADITION Europeans have always been fond of public clocks. One has only to visit the downtown of almost any major city, town, or village, to see the timepieces, often beautiful and elaborate, that grace all manner of public buildings. Some of these clocks date back to the Middle Ages and are now famous tourist attractions.

I am often dismayed by all the ‘negative news’ in the press, perpetuating what I see as a culture of fear; headlines about all the dangers out there, real and invented. I fully understand that these kinds of headlines are what lure readers in a highly competitive market.

O Canada! Our home and native land True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise The True North strong and free!

As of January 2002, the independent municipality of Bromptonville (formerly Brompton Falls) became Brompton, District #1 of the City of Sherbrooke. Bromptonville has joined other area towns as "boroughs" of Greater Sherbrooke. Lennoxville, Rock Forest, Fleurimont, Deauville, Saint-Élie-d'Orford, Stoke, and Ascot have all gone the same way.

Remnants of our past are everywhere. The same is true of our early one-room schoolhouses. Many of these unpretentious little buildings are still visible at crossroads throughout the Townships, testifying to an era when the neighbourhood schoolhouse was the place to send one's children.

The year was 1942. A village mechanic awoke from a vivid dream, a dream that would eventually have international repercussions. It has now been more than half a century since Joseph-Armand Bombardier realized his dream and patented the first tracked vehicle, the B7, and formed L'Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée.

Like most kids, when I was growing up, I enjoyed reading Peanuts, especially the adventures of Snoopy and the Red Baron, which were based on the German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen and his World War I exploits. It's funny how something from your childhood you had forgotten can suddenly come back to life.

William Henry Bartlett was born in London, England in 1809. During his career, Bartlett made several trips to North America. In the late 1830s, he traveled around Canada sketching towns, villages, and rural landscapes in what were then the provinces of Lower Canada, Upper Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Hector Macdonald (right) was reputed to be “ Canada’s largest St. Bernard.” So, at least, declared this eye-catching business card, published after the dog’s death in 1907.