September 17 : a memorable day in the Montérégie

Marie-Pierre Tremblay

A gloomy start to the day. Grey, very grey and even raining. You really have to be a hearty soul to want to spend the day out of doors... At 8:30 on the dot, some forty of us climb aboard a comfortable coach at Côte-de-Liesse and off we go to Saint-Bernard de Lacolle. As we ride along, the sun peeps out and everyone feels more cheerful.

Behind the flowering shrubs surrounding their huge country estate, Lise and Marcel Carrière welcome us with all their habitual warmth and generosity. Alter greetings and introductions we set off across the fields. Turning onto a winding path along the edge of thick ancient forest, I hear the sound of bagpipes. The music draws us forward to our destination: a little clearing in the middle of which stands a maple tree. And what a tree! Flourishing and majestic, it measures twenty-two feet around the trunk (seven feet in diameter). This giant of the forest is more than 300 years old, and its existence had been forgotten until their neighbour Bernard Gosselin discovered it after the ice storm. Since then it has become famous. We gaze, moved, at this witness of bygone centuries. The silence is profound. Even the birds have stopped singing so as not to distract us. Then Marcel tells us about the maple and Bernard's successful campaign to save it. Poems to nature are read by Marie FitzGerald and Beryl Tovim, another of Marcel's neighbours. An unusual ceremony that brings us close to the earth.

The haunting notes of the bagpipes are heard again. Going back to the house we explore the garden of spring flowers created by Lise over the years, the hen house transformed into a tea-room, Marcel's sculptures made of soldered electrical wires drawing the eye to the Allée de l'An 2000, the stretch of water ringed by tall cedars, and many more delightful spots designed for relaxation, reading, conversation or meditation.

Our group is then invited to visit a craft fair taking place on the other side of the road, on the property of former NFBer Susan Heller. Our bags are soon filled with jars of maple syrup, wicker baskets, home-made jams, sculptures, paintings, knitwear and yarn.

Back at the Carrières' we find some fifteen beautifully set tables laid out in the garden, where a hot buffet lunch awaits us under a tent. As an aperitif, Lise and Marcel serve us an excellent local cider. After the boeuf bourguignon, vegetables and a variety of pies, we are introduced to some exquisite local cheeses. The red wine donated by the NFB Club, the catchy music of an accordion-harmonica player and the light-hearted conversation helped us quite forget that the rain was bucketing down around our flowered beach umbrellas.

At about two o'clock we hit the road again. Who's that waving to us ? Pierre Hébert. A happy reunion. Earlier in the day Michèle Pauzé and Monique Fortier had also come by to say hello. It was so nice to see them again.

The barn of the Petch Orchards in Hemingford was full of surprises: old farm machinery, more or less recognizable, scales for weighing apples, tractors, school desks, and even a miniature model of the village as it was not so long ago, made to scale, with its sixty or so houses and its four churches flanked by stables. While some members of the Club chose to pick their apples on the spot, others took the tour of this enormous orchard full of sturdy pear trees and fragrant varieties of apple, notably Mclntosh, Lobo, Cortland and Spartan. An obligatory stop at the shop purveying fruit tacts, crab-apple jelly, apple butter and all sorts of gourmet items.

Our final visit takes us to La Face cachée de la pomme, a company run by the dynamic team of former film producer François Pouliot and Stéphanie Beaudoin. They have succeeded in developing an ice cider, something unique to Quebec, for which there is a growing demand on Asian and European markets and also in Mexico. When they started in 1994 they made their cider completely by hand. Now the large refrigerated warehouses adjoining their house, which dates from 1842, show how business is booming. Mr. Pouliot explains the two methods of cider-making they use: for Frimas, a superior quality product, he takes frozen apples picked from the tree between Christmas and the end of January, and keeps them outdoors until it's time to press them. The juice ferments for about eight months until it reaches an alcohol level of 12.5%. The variety of apple tree used for Frimas, which does not drop its fruit in the fall, is about fifty years old and seems to have been developed by Macdonald College in the 1930s. Its name is unknown. It takes fifty apples to make a half-litre bottle of Frimas, which explains its relatively high price. The demand is so great that bottles have to be ordered months, if not a year, in advance.

photos : Micheal Hazel

The method for making Neige, their best-selling cider, is quite different and involves the principle of cryo-extraction, using cold to concentrate the sugar. The apples are picked in late fall and refrigerated until the ground freezes. They are then pressed (in December) and the juice is kept in huge vats that are left outdoors. No sugar or additives are used to make ice cider. Today the yard is full of enormous crates of apples, and the family's big Labrador is eating apples with obvious relish. Alter touring the warehouses we are shown the bottling process, which is completely automated from bottle washing to applying the label. We could not see the fermenting vats, but in the tasting room, boldly designed and welcoming, we were able to taste (and buy) this nectar of the gods before driving back to Montreal, laden with souvenirs of a memorable day of poetry, music, delightful encounters, splendid food and fascinating discoveries.

Click pages 2 à 4 to see more photos.