See your corner of the country change

Some cities are considered “holes” (at least, by the jaded teenagers who grow up there). And some of these “holes” can become, over time, popular destinations… Reflection on the mysteries of tourism.

In the early 2000s, in Farnham, young people had two options: the video store or Subway. There was indeed a skate parkbut it was for the cool. And there were the drug parks, obviously. Let’s say four options, then.

In my small town, there were less than 8,000 of us and the time could be long. In Bedford, where my father lived, there was even less to do. A polluted river, a gym with a ping-pong room and a library. We did the tour in one afternoon.

If I really enjoyed my youth, it is more thanks to the basements of my friends than to the offer of my municipalities. Unfortunately, I felt no admiration for their gentle landscapes or their local artisans.

So you can imagine my surprise when a friend recently told me she had a chalet in… Farnham. Of all cities, why this one? Because nature, the fields, the beauty, she told me! The beauty ?

She might have hit her head and suffered a momentary loss of judgment, but this friend was in good health and was not an isolated case. In 2021, News published “The power of attraction of Farnham”, an article about its “tremendous growth”… We are talking about a 26% increase in the population in 10 years.

In fact, the entire MRC of Brome-Missisquoi is attractive: between 2016 and 2022, it experienced a population increase of 11.1%, which is well beyond the provincial average of 4. 1%.

In 2019, it is estimated to have received more than a million tourists, I was told at the Brome-Missisquoi local development center. In 2021, while Quebecers were traveling locally because of the pandemic, there was so much traffic on the hiking trails that it caused small headaches for managers…

The area has the wind in its sails. This is understandable: in Farnham, there is now a microbrewery, a cheese factory and vineyards… (There were already some in my time, but Quebec wine was not fashionable, unlike today. If we told me, 15 years ago, that I would eventually line up for a bottle from Les Pervenches, I would have spit out my Sex on the Beach.)

Bedford has become a very cute place to stroll if you like to arouse the envy of your loved ones with rural photos. There is even a brand new recreational tourism park.

I have friends from Montreal who organize getaways to Venise-en-Québec. But. what is. This. Who. se. pass ?

Frelighsburg, Knowlton, Dunham, I do! They have always attracted their share of day tourists. But how did the uninspiring towns of my childhood make their way into what we consider to be the beauties of our homeland?

A dissociation occurs in me when people praise the merits of my native region. I can’t get my head around the idea that the streets where I was bored are the ones that those around me now run in search of little trips.

Maybe it’s because although they’re full of vitality, I’ll always see myself trying to come to terms with the awkwardness of adolescence. Perhaps the call of the metropolis was so great that I never knew how to attach myself to my corner of the country, too narrow for my ambitions (but big enough for those of the Arcade Fire group, which bought a former church to operate a music studio from 2005 to 2013). Maybe, too, it’s difficult to appreciate the beauty of nourishing fields, the sound of falls, the purity of light or the calm inherent in a slower pace when you’re 12 years old…

Some corners are possibly made to be loved when mature.

Looking at them with a new eye, however, requires a certain openness. The city may change, but I refuse to see it. If what was flat can become a jewel, that means that what was young can become old.

I sleep better when I feel like nothing is moving.

Fortunately, some things persist. One of the few unifying activities in the area used to be the Asterix games, the football team from Jean-Jacques-Bertrand high school. A few weeks ago, I attended one of them, just like in the old days… Along with a hundred other people, I applauded my nephew and his teammates as they ruled the field. A landmark of precious comfort.

Watching them rejoice after their victory, I said to myself that it was so much the better, basically, if these teenagers now had the right to a cultural life, cafes, many neighbors and tourists… I grew up in a limited pool of people which did not offer great diversity. The horizons of the new generation will perhaps be broad enough for them to recognize the beauty of what they have, rather than dreaming of escape.

(Hoping, however, that she never has to do like the residents of Woodstock, Vermont, who had to ban tourists to prevent their charming region from being overexploited by influencers and visitors thirsty for idyllic settings, I said learned in The Press… There are always limits to seeing your part of the country change.)