The Eastern Townships
In 1861, when British novelist Anthony Trollope was visiting Quebec, he was urged “not to leave the colony” until he had seen Lake Memphremagog. He climbed a mountain on the western shore and later wrote a glowing account of the experience. “The view down upon the lake and the forests around, and on the wooded hills below, is wonderfully lovely…. I would advise all travellers in Lower Canada to go up the Owl’s Head.”
Memphremagog, and indeed, the Eastern Townships as a whole, continues to draw rave reviews from visitors. It is not only the scenery that makes this region southeast of Montreal so distinctive. It is also its history. As its heritage architecture attests, the Townships still bears the imprint of the New Englanders and New Yorkers who established the first settlements here in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
