--October 29, 2019.
Imagine being told to take what personal possessions you could carry and leave the only home you have ever known. That’s what happened to people called Loyalists, American colonists who supported the British King during the American Revolution (1777-1783).
One of Sherbrooke's most recently developed attractions -- and certainly one of the most colourful ways that the city has spruced itself up over the past few years -- is the collection of eleven (so far) larger-than-life, tromp-l'oeil murals that have appeared over the past decade on vacant walls in and around the old downtown core.
Missisquoi Bay on Lake Champlain was a haven for refugees during the American Revolution. In the 1770s and 1780s, they came by the thousands into Quebec, mainly from New York’s upper Hudson and Mohawk river valleys.
These migrants reached British soil near a traditional Abenaki village on the mouth of the Missisquoi River, the district then forming a largely unpopulated seigneury called St. Armand.
Quebec’s upper St. Francis River cuts through dense woodland in mountainous backcountry, far from the treeless north Scottish coast. Yet the lilt of Gaelic once rang out in rock-strewn fields and crofters’ cabins.
Highland streams part ways on the slopes of the Quebec-New England border. Some flow north toward the St. Lawrence. Others join the Connecticut River on its way to the sea. The height of land in between marks one of the oldest pioneer gateways in the Eastern Townships.
The border county of Brome in Quebec’s Eastern Townships overspreads a swath of Appalachian country from the Sutton Mountains to Lake Memphremagog. Renowned for its lakes and mountains, the region also has strong historical ties that reach across the international boundary.
The Megantic County Heritage Trail leads to historic settlements and points of interest in rolling Appalachian country west of Quebec’s Chaudière River.