Hello from Quebec (Magog) - 1
So I am sitting here at the Club Vacances Magog with the
wind howling outside at 45+ km per hour and temperatures of
about -15 to -20 degrees Celsius, windchill factor not included.
We drove up from Toronto last Saturday and it only took us
about 6 hours to get to the town of Magog in Quebec's Eastern
Townships. This area, l'Estrie, is located about 1 hour southeast
of Montreal and very close to the Quebec - Vermont border.
There are several fairly large lakes in the area: Lake Memphremagog being the largest, there is Lake Magog and there is also Lake
Massawippi.
We had a pretty nice dinner Saturday night at a local restaurant
in Magog called Jacko's. Sunday we took a nice drive around
to places like North Hatley (a picturesque pioneer village),
Lennoxville and we took a quick drive through the major city
of the area, Sherbrooke.
North Hatley, Quebec.
Monday we went skiing at Mount Orford which is just outside
the town of Magog. It is the largest one of the ski mountains
in the area with an altitude of 986 meters and a vertical
drop of 1770 feet. It was quite a nice mountain to ski on,
but the top was covered in fog the whole day and it was very
windy. We had to retreat mid-afternoonish because it got too
cold.
Architecture in Sherbrooke.
Yesterday we went skiing at Owl's Head, towards the southern
end of Lake Mephremagog. It also has a vertical of 1770 feet.
Actually we enjoyed Owl's Head better than Orford and on Tuesdays
and Wednesdays they offer incredible deals: $15 (Canadian!)
for a whole day of skiing, apparently the best value for skiing
in Eastern North America.
No skiing today though. It is simply too darn cold. The wind
is howling and snow occasionally blows horizontally across
the landscape. I had romantic notions of driving into Montreal
today, but the cold weather would have ruined such an outing.
Mural in Sherbrooke.
So we hope to catch a bit more skiing and maybe some sightseeing
in the next 3 days. Winter arrived late here in the Eastern
Townships of Quebec this year, but it arrived with a vengeance.
Useful books for travelling and skiing in Quebec:
Related articles:
Click here for my
second travel report from Quebec.