The Town of Brome Lake (officially Ville de Lac-Brome) is a town in southern

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 5,609. Tourism is a major industry in the village of Knowlton because of skiing in the winter, lake activities in summer, and

autumn leaf colour Autumn leaf color is a phenomenon that affects the normal green leaves of many deciduous trees and shrubs by which they take on, during a few weeks in the autumn season, various shades of yellow, orange, red, purple, and brown. The phenomenon i ...

History

The village was founded in 1802 by

United Empire Loyalists United Empire Loyalists (or simply Loyalists) is an honorific title which was first given by the 1st Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Quebec, and Governor General of The Canadas, to American Loyalists who resettled in British North America duri ...

from the

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

states and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Originally known as Coldbrook for the stream that runs through the centre of the village, in 1855 the village had become the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

Brome County, Quebec Brome County, is a historical county of Quebec. It takes its name from the name of a manor in the parish of Barham in Kent, England that was named after the broom plant. It was named by English surveyors. The earliest settlers to this region were ...

. In 1971, seven villages on

Brome Lake Brome Lake (french: Lac Brome) is a freshwater lake in the town of Brome Lake, in the Brome-Missisquoi regional county municipality of the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It is the source of the Yamaska River. The name Brome Lake comes f ...

(Bondville, East Hill, Foster, Fulford, Knowlton, Iron Hill, and West Brome) were amalgamated to create the current town, which is now in the

Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality Brome-Missisquoi is a regional county municipality in the Estrie region of Quebec, Canada. It lies in the Eastern Townships area. The seat is Cowansville. In 2021, it was transferred to the Estrie region from Montérégie. In Parliament it is cov ...

of the Estrie administrative region.

Geography

Metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

age—mostly

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

and phyllite—underlies the area.

Quaternary glaciation The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial and interglacial periods during the Quaternary period that began 2.58 Ma (million years ago) and is ongoing. Although geologists describe ...

left deposits of stony loam till plus outwash sands and gravels.

Brown podzolic Brown podzolic soils are a subdivision of the Podzolic soils in the British soil classification. Although classed with podzols because they have an iron-rich, or spodic horizon, they are, in fact intermediate between podzols and Brown earths. Th ...

and podzol soils are most common.

Gleysol A gleysol is a wetland soil (hydric soil) that, unless drained, is saturated with groundwater for long enough to develop a characteristic colour pattern. The pattern is essentially made up of reddish, brownish, or yellowish colours at surfaces o ...

s and

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

s occur in poorly drained areas. The area's most significant soil is the Blandford series. This well-drained

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

developed under deciduous forest. Settlers exploited this forest for

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

potash Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.

, and

maple sugar Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in Canada and the northeastern United States, prepared from the sap of the maple tree ("maple sap"). Sources Three species of maple trees in the genus '' Acer'' are predominantly used to produce maple ...

. Cleared areas were found to be productive for crops and pasture. Much former farmland has reverted to forest and today provides a supply of hardwood lumber.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Lac-Brome had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Education

*École Saint-Édouard, ( CSVDC) *Knowlton Academy (

Eastern Townships School Board The Eastern Townships School Board, also known as the Commission Scolaire Eastern Townships, is an anglophone school board covering the Eastern Townships in the Canadian province of Quebec. As of 2010, it oversees twenty elementary schools, three ...

)

Media

Brome Lake has one radio station serving its local area, the Knowlton-based

CIDI-FM CIDI-FM is an English language community radio station with French programming that broadcasts at 99.1 FM in Brome Lake, Quebec The Town of Brome Lake (officially Ville de Lac-Brome) is a town in southern Quebec, Canada. The population as of th ...

99.1 MHz.

In film

In 1968,

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

chose Knowlton as the location to film the children's movie ''

My Side of the Mountain (film) ''My Side of the Mountain'' is a 1969 Panavision and Technicolor film adaptation of the 1959 novel of the same name, by Jean Craighead George. It was directed by James B. Clark. Plot The story revolves around twelve-year-old Sam Gribley (Teddy E ...

'', an adaptation of a book by

Jean Craighead George Jean Carolyn Craighead George (July 2, 1919 – May 15, 2012) was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Newbery Medal-winning '' Julie of the Wolves'' and Newbery runner-up ''My Side ...

br>
Many scenes from the village were used as well as a man-made pond at the corner of Chemin Paramount and Chemin Paige near Mount Glen. In 1975, Knowlton was used as one of the sites for filming the Jodie Foster suspense film '' The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane''.

Notable people

Paul Holland Knowlton Paul Holland Knowlton (September 17, 1787 – August 28, 1863) was a businessman and political figure in Lower Canada and Canada East. He was born in Newfane, Vermont in 1787, the son of Silas Knowlton (1764-1844) and Lucinda Holbrook, and t ...

Paul Martin Paul Edgar Philippe Martin (born August 28, 1938), also known as Paul Martin Jr., is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 21st prime minister of Canada and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006. The son o ...

Louise Penny Louise Penny is a Canadian author of mystery novels set in the Canadian province of Quebec centred on the work of francophone Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny's first career was as a radio broadcaster for the Can ...

References

External links

Town of Brome Lake - Ville de Lac-Brome - official municipal website

{{Brome-Missisquoi RCM, state=expanded Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality