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

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, 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 ...

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 tota ...

. 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 du ...

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 province ...

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 ...

of Brome County, Quebec. In 1971, seven villages on Brome Lake (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 of the

Estrie Estrie () is an administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 per cent francophone. Angl ...

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, cau ...

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized 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 years ag ...

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 ...

and

phyllite Phyllite ( ) is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation.Stephen Marshak ''Essentials of Geology'', 3rd ed. It is primarily compo ...

—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 describ ...

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. ...

and

podzol In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of hum ...

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 Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this was abolished and ...

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–si ...

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 ligni ...

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 conducted by Statistics Canada, 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)

Media

Brome Lake has one radio station serving its local area, the Knowlton-based CIDI-FM 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-oldes ...

chose Knowlton as the location to film the children's movie '' My Side of the Mountain (film)'', 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 Sid ...

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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 Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the hon ...

suspense film '' The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane''.

Notable people

* Paul Holland Knowlton *

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 ...

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