Given today's touchy political realities it's probably not a good idea to disclose this, but here goes: I am a Francophile. Indeed, I make a point of having my baguettes fresh daily or as often as I can. I love to pick at escargots. In season or out, I wade through incalculable bowls of moules à la marinière.I relish (however infrequently) leisurely bike rides along country lanes and, lest you wonder, I even fill my halved Charentais melons with liquor just like they do on theLeft Bank.
But since I don't get a chance to travel to the mother country as often as I'd like, I instead make my way to Québec. Yes, Québec: the very same Canadian province where the dutiful citizenry - appalled by the frenzied Americanization occurring in the rest of their country - nearly seceded from the union in a referendum meant to protect their rich heritage, preserve their culture, and protect their language.
That didn't happen (although another vote is expected soon) and things have, for the most part, substantially cooled off since those tense months back in 1995. More than a decade later, Québecers, however separatist, are embracing a more welcoming apolitical ideal: tourism - and specifically, agrotourism.
In fact, in the past few years, French Canadians have grown receptive, eager to lure travellers - be they from the U.S. or elsewhere - who want a French experience but without a Parisian price tag and get it thanks to the strength of the U.S dollar.
Apres moi, les mouches
Québec charms are best appreciated in the pre-black-fly season of late spring and early summer when the all-pallid milieu of winter gives way to a vibrant and velvety patchwork of lush gentle rises and a network of roads connecting it all. In fact, the continent's first road, chemin du Roi or King's Road is now Route 138: a picturesque rolling byway linking Montréal with Québec City along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence in two hours, rather than the five days it used to take by horse.
My journey, however, was focused on southern Québec and began when I crossed the border on a heavily-wooded, secondary road in Rouses Point, New York - where the main attraction are the endless vistas afforded by the shimmering waters of Lake Champlain.
The Canadian region abutting the U.S. is called, rather unromantically, the Eastern Townships. It is an undulating, unspoilt, and wooded storybook of ancient mountain ranges, stone fences, picturesque back roads, and pretty villages stretching from the international boundary to the southern banks of the St. Lawrence River and, like a string of pearls, as far east as the Québec-Maine border, some 390 kilometers away. It is rightly dubbed the Garden of Québec.
In all, there are 85 villages - speckled with wineries, restaurants, coops, specialized farms, and roadside stalls, selling everything from Tourtière to Maple Sugar Pie - that make up the Eastern Townships, including my first stop, Frelighsburg, which is nestled in the foothills of Vermont's Green Mountains and astride the River Aux Brochets. The chocolate-box village was named in honour of Dr. Abram Freligh, who in 1800 left his home in Dutchess County, New York, and emigrated here with an entourage of ten kids, servants, slaves. Unlike my arrival, his was by twenty-two double harness carriages.
The path he took is now known as route 243: a narrow sliver of blacktop meandering south toward Vermont, which these days attracts a steady flow of bicyclists who come to enjoy 500-kilometers of piste cyclable in what one newspaper exclaimed as "La Meilleure Destination Velo Au Monde" - the best place for cycling in the world.
Most of the year, visitors arrive in manageable numbers and come for the simple pleasures of bedding down in charming B&Bs like Domaine Des Chutes or for haute patisseries, like those found at Les Sucreries de l'Erable. Come September, however, the town gets inundated as more than a hundred artists and thousands of art lovers from around the region congregate at the largest open-air gallery, the Festiv'Art.
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