A Short Break in North Hatley with Gillian Hull
THE LAKE is many miles long with a distinct bend preventing one from seeing its full extent. At one end is a charming village with scattered houses on wooded hillsides, which drop steeply down to the water’s edge. In summer the many visitors to the area enjoy the delights of sandy beaches and water sports. The hills have extensive walking trails with views to the distant mountains.
This is not Loch Tay, but Lake Massawippi in Quebec Province, close to the American border. A land of inviting lakes, mountains and mainly deciduous woodland, the area’s villages are known as the Eastern Townships.
I was recently in Canada for a goddaughter’s wedding and spent 10 days in the village of North Hatley at the end of Lake Massawippi. Named by the Abenaki Indians, it means ‘deep, clear water’. The river of the same name exits from the lake in the centre of the village.
Both the marriage ceremony and reception took place on lawns sloping down to the water’s edge, while the bride was piped in by one of her young cousins from Scotland. There was a good scattering of kilts amongst the many Scottish relatives as well as Canadian friends, whose forebears had emigrated. |
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Both bride and groom are widely travelled and it was a truly international occasion. Guests from countries as diverse as the USA, Mexico, Britain, Italy, South Africa, Bali and even Cambodia all converged on the attractive village with its white board houses surrounded by flower-filled gardens.
The area is bisected by the nothernmost part of the Appalachian mountains which stretch down the eastern side of North America from the Gulf of St Lawrence almost to Florida. These are extremely ancient mountains eroded from a height similar to the Himalaya to rounded peaks which, in Canada, are between three and four thousand feet high.
The land was first settled by the Abenaki Indians (of the Algonquin group) who established villages in the native woodland of maple, walnut, birch and oak. They hunted moose, caribou, and deer in the forest, and often used porcupine quills to decorate their deerskin clothing. They built light, but strong canoes from the bark of the White Birch, skills which they taught to the Europeans.
Increasing evidence of a Viking presence on Canada’s east coast is being discovered. However, it was not until 1603 that Samuel de Champlain, Geographer to the French King, sailed up the St. Lawrence and was so impressed by the land’s fertility, that he encouraged European settlement and founded Quebec city. The Eastern Townships were mostly settled by English-speaking people, whose numbers grew hugely after the American Civil War when many loyal to the Crown moved to Canada from the Southern States.
The graceful homes they built, with wide verandahs, are reminiscent of those they left behind them. After 1850 French-speaking Quebecois moved to the region to work on the new railways and in forestry; today most of the people are bilingual.
The French interest in food and cooking is reflected in the shops, restaurants and farmers’ markets, which sell mouth-watering home-cooking and home-grown fruit and vegetables. Some interesting round barns, built by the ‘Shaker’ community, still survive; they believed the Devil could not hide in a building without corners. With the landscape bathed in warm sunshine I found it hard to believe that temperatures fall to minus 25F and below during the long Canadian winter. There is an extended skiing season in this country where summer and winter are so contrasting.
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