Notes and Highlights of our recent Quebec Eastern Townships tour, 2024
Each year, we revisit Quebec, the Eastern Townships, a region that’s like a mini, easily-reached European tour. It’s got a lot of bang for the buck: excellent food and drink, historical sites from the Canadian past, pastoral scenes, agrarian settings and a very welcoming population, most of whom speak English as fluently as they speak French. But best of all for us, the other ‘big guy,’ Fermo, comes with us.
2024 Edition locales
This isn’t your old “vacation slides show.” It’s just an overview of the memorable highlights of our recent short tour of the Eastern Townships of Quebec.
Recommendation
Depending on the duration you intend to travel, ours was 6 days, we recommend picking centres to stay, 2-3 days in each. This means less hotel changing, a more restful stay and enough time to comfortably explore an area.
Our two centres of stay were LAC BROME and MAGOG (NORTH HATLEY).
We spent 3 days in each centre, exploring a different direction or different roads/destinations each day.
LAC BROME
This was duck country, the famous Brome Duck, and it is everything it is cracked up to be. Every restaurant of note, even pubs, offered some version of duck from breast in sweet sauce to poutine style. The actual BROME Duck centre no longer offers tours as it once did as a major fire a few years back destroyed almost the entire industrial center. Now they have a product boutique but the duck chicks are ‘farmed’ out to local farmers for maturing.
Roadways in this area are amazingly picturesque, hill and dale, valley and crests with shoulders of trees, often so overgrown they canopy the roadway. This is motorcycle and sportscar driving and in Quebec, they are partial to trike motorcycles. Speed limits are in the 70-80 kph range though you the curves sometimes discourage maintaining that limit.
SUTTON
Sutton is Quebec’s response to Alberta’s Jasper, smaller but as quaint and welcoming. A main street with boutiques, bars, bistros and baristas. For a great coffee on a charming back yard patio, try Yama-biko Cafe for outstanding coffees in any style.
The people of Sutton speak both languages well and are inviting in each. Well worth an hour or two if you are in the area.
MAGOG – NORTH HATLEY
Magog is the larger centre and has a lovely downtown. Quaint doesn’t suit Magog, as it is built up more than what many would call quaint. It definitely has some fine dining spots, but take note that the region has a well-to-do English-speaking population. This is not rural Quebec.
North Hatley on the other hand is quaint, small, a village by the lake. Great little place for walking or picnicking by a lake. Highlighting recommended: Auberge La Raveaudiere, 11 Chemin Hatley Centre, Canton De Hatley, is a guest house operated by two partners, retired businessmen. It is a high quality inn serving breakfast only and providing coffee and teas during the day. The breakfasts, first class; the room: clean, roomy, modern and classy…no TVs. A very restful place.
COATICOOK VALLEY
The whole area is renown for its cheese, both cow and goat and they are all they are cracked up to be. Delicious quality cheeses that rival the best of the world.
Coaticook has a beautiful gorge with a large waterway and awesome suspension bridge. It’s an area with breathtaking trail hiking. After a couple hours, you must visit one for the two excellent craft breweries or the renowned ice cream ‘palace’ that serves the best shakes and ice cream anywhere.
CANTONS DE L’EST REGION
In Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Cantons de l’Est, you can spend days just exploring and relaxing in this region. On a map, find Lake Memphremagog, which seems to create a natural dividing line between the east and west of the townships. The east, headed by Lac Brome, famous for its ducks, offers all kinds of delectable recipes in its restaurant menus. The piece de resistance is the locally famed dessert, maple sugar pie. Ending your meal with a slice of this is absolutely heavenly, its lingering sweet taste not soon forgotten. At the end of the day, you can watch the ducks on the lake as they paddle toward their night’s resting place. The sun setting over this small Lac Brome provides a spectacular view of sky colours.
BROMONT
Bromont is one of the larger towns in the area. Amble along the old, historical section of town. This is the street where, no matter which cafe you enter, you will enjoy a delicious hot morning coffee accompanied by homemade, freshly baked goodies. A nice way to start the day.
The Cantons district is also well known for its vignobles, the vineyards. Centered around Dunham, you can spend more than one day visiting them all. Considering that each offers wine tastings, you have to be cognizant of who is the designated driver for the day. Each vignoble offers its own unique experience, tastings, tours, bistros or picnic areas. Great ways to spend time in the outdoors.
Of course, Sutton is well-known to winter skiers. Reminiscent of a miniature Whistler, it is buzzing with crowds all year round. Sit and people watch, enjoy a local beer, a great coffee…and relax.
Saint Benoit-du-Lac
Saint Benoit-du-Lac is also well worth mentioning. The Benedictine monastery here, if you happen to arrive for the 11am service, will engage you with an extraordinary Gregorian chant intensifying the following silence so much, you can hear the proverbial pin drop. As you enter the church building, walk along the long arched corridor, appreciate the modern mosaic flooring, and the postings on the corridor walls describing the history of this monastic community. The monks produce many of the land products: cheeses, jams…all to be found in the church’s boutique. On weekends in the fall, the orchards surrounding the church are crowded with families who may enjoy a few hours picking fresh apples.
Magog
Magog is the bigger city. Geographically, it sits at the northern tip of Lake Memphremagog, as if guarding the two sides. It invites its visitors to enjoy a visit to the beach, picnic there or in the evening, dine in one of its many restaurants along the Rue Centrale.
If Cantons east has its vignobles, the cantons west have their fromageries, their cheese production. The Coaticook Valley offers many cattle and goat farms where they produce some of the finest cheeses in Canada. Most of these farms also have a boutique or shop where you can stock up on the locally produced cheese. For example, in Compton, La Station, likely the biggest cheese producer in the region. Thoroughly modernized and surrounded by pastures where cows peacefully graze and tourist-watch. These cows are the bovine stars of the cheese production here. Visit the boutique to taste a cheese, select one you like and take it home…Door Dash can never provide anything like this experience or tasting.
Fromageries Les Broussailles, a small farm on the other hand, specializes in goat cheese production. It has a tiny, quaint little shop, and I mean tiny, where they place a lot of trust in the honesty and integrity of tourists. You open the small refrigerator to see the cheese products they are selling. Make your choice, and leave the price-tagged amount in the jar on the counter. Yes, in this day and age, an open jar with money in it on the counter. Incredible! On this farm not only were we invited to see goats, but also chickens and their head honcho, a big red rooster, pigs, horses. As well we had a great conversation with the francophone owner. It was a fresh-air and fresh-way to visit with a dairy producer at their farm site.
COATICOOK
Coaticook, the largest centre of this Valley, offers two microbreweries, a laiterie with the best ice cream ever! Walk off all those calories by hiking in the Coaticook Gorge. It is definitely far from being the Grand Canyon, but as a Canadian and Quebecois version, the Gorge offers great hiking trails, each geared to the stamina one has in any one part of the day.
People everywhere were welcoming and accommodating.
There is much to see, experience and enjoy in Quebec’s Cantons de l’Est. The region offers relaxation, historical sites, and a great variety of foods and drink for every taste.
This is one part of Canada. As Canadians, we have much more to see and learn.
2023 edition -> 
