Matthew Farfan

The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN), with the help of the Department of Canadian Heritage, recently unveiled a series of four new brochures on the heritage of Quebec's far-flung English-speaking communities. Researched and written by QAHN's Heritage Trails Coordinator, Dwane Wilkin, the brochures provide fascinating one-day tours of four very different parts of the province: Old Quebec City; Outaouais-Pontiac; Châteauguay Valley, and Megantic County. More tours are planned, depending on available funding.

According to QAHN, the project's aim is to demonstrate how the organization can "help historical societies showcase their work and their region's history. It evolved into a tourism initiative designed to preserve and promote the anglophone community's heritage." Each "heritage trail" contains illustrations and maps to help travellers tour that particular area. Included, as well, are anecdotes about the history of the villages and hamlets along the route, important personages in the region's past, and heritage sites and other attractions worth visiting. There are also names and telephone numbers for heritage attractions that are open to the public.

MEGANTIC COUNTY
One of the four booklets, the "Megantic County Heritage Trail," pertains to the Eastern Townships. This tour takes visitors through the scenic area around Inverness, Kinnear's Mills, Lysander Falls, and St-Jacques-de-Leeds, a region noted for its Scottish pioneers and for the historic Gosford Road which passes through it. In this brochure, readers will learn about such interesting sites as the Leeds Model School and the Bécancour River. The river, it is said, is a quiet stream in summer, but "swells to a torrent during the yearly thaw. Three covered bridges in the region were swept away and six men drowned during the flood of 1896." A marker at the Lysander Falls rest area honours their memory.

Visitors to these areas will find these brochures well work procuring. To obtain them, in either English or French, contact QAHN Coordinator Valérie Bridger, at home@qahn.org.

To learn more about the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network, click here.