he Eastern Townships are the one corner of Quebec whose map was drawn in English. After the American Revolution, thousands of Loyalists left Vermont and New Hampshire and carved the territory not into French-style seigneuries but into square townships, New England fashion. Hence the cantons. Hence, too, villages that look like nowhere else in Quebec: Knowlton, Sutton, North Hatley, with their Anglican churches, Victorian verandas and round barns.
French arrived around 1850 and eventually prevailed without erasing the scenery. Today the region reads as a set of loops: the wine route between Dunham and Sutton, birthplace of Quebec's first commercial vineyards; the road around Lac Massawippi; Lake Memphremagog and the Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, where Benedictines have been building a polychrome brick monastery since 1912 and sell their cheeses and ciders between offices sung in Gregorian chant.
Sherbrooke serves as capital, Magog as lakeside resort, Bromont and Orford as mountains. But the real action is on the back roads: some twenty microbreweries, cheese dairies, lakeside inns, and at the far end Mont-Mégantic — the world's first International Dark Sky Reserve, where you drive up the mountain to see nothing but stars.
