Star Café's New Knowlton Digs Already an Eastern Townships Hotspot

Glad to be back in the Eastern Townships after a beautiful trip to Montezuma, Costa Rica. (Hola, amigos!) The flowers are blooming, and the birds are signing. As they say in Costa Rica, pura vida.

We noticed that Knowlton's Star Café has moved to a great new bigger location in the gorgeous restored tannery building (61 Lakeside), which was built in 1843. We're looking forward to paying them a visit. 

Good luck, guys!

UPDATE: We've been to the Star Café's new location twice in the past two weeks. What a nice place - always full of customers. 

It's already become a real community hub in just a couple of weeks since opening. What a welcome boost for downtown Knowlton, which for a long time has lacked community-oriented businesses that target local clients (as opposed to the fickle tourist market).

Just goes to show businesses can attract local people downtown with the right mix of prices and quality services - and do very well.

The Crossing: Holy Awakening in the Eastern Townships

Just got back from a beautiful Father's Day trip to Vermont, capped off with an amazing dinner at The Crossing in Richford, VT, just across the border from Sutton in the Eastern Townships.

Wow. You must go.

Don't keep reading this. Just go already.

...

So now that you're back, what did you think? Pretty amazing, I am sure you will agree.

I had some great ribs - 2 lbs no less - while the kids ate some kind of incredible version of home-made vegetable soup I didn't know existed before. Rhonda's filet mignon was like butta.

And I don't need to mention that the peanut butter pie is like a religious awakening.

Just added these beautiful folks to my "Restaurants" section on my food page. Check out their website for more details.

They might not be right in the Eastern Townships, but hey, they're honourary Townshippers in my mind. What's a couple of kilometres between friends anyway.

Thanks to The Crossing for helping make my Father's Day so fine! And I hope yours was too.

GIVE A TOSS IN THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS

A new craze has hit Quebec's Eastern Townships. Move over horse farms and military whist. The region once known for opera in the country is now being taken over by toilet tossers.


Yes, you read that right. Toilet tossers. Don't believe me? See for yourself in these educational YouTube videos (here, here, here, here and here) of this amazing-but-true sport in action.

We're not talking here about your basic throwing toilets off a roof (seen here). That's fun stuff obviously, but where's the technique, the honing of the human body into a precise instrument of porcelain power?

Throwing toilets actually has a long and noble tradition in our beloved Eastern Townships. Well actually no it doesn't, but tossing into a toilet does. Close enough!

USE YOUR HEAD, SON!

I discovered this mind-blowing sport when someone at the Canada Day party in Knowlton asked me, "Do you want to toss a toilet?" I said, "Whuu...?" I was instantly hooked on hurling heads. And so are a lot of other folks, based on the long line-up of tossers and crowd of fans we get each year at Canada Day. And you will be too.

But waiting a whole year to catapult a crapper is waaay too long. So a porcelain-loving buddy of mine, Shannon (why, here he is engaged in his latest hobby), found our very own bowl for us to chuck up. The sport is challenging and is all about thinking with your head. But watch out for the harsh fans and be sure to stand waaay back.

One tosser at the last Canada Day sliced his leg open while throwing a toilet that had some broken parts on the bottom. And someone else almost hit some kids when his went flying in the wrong direction. We're talking NASCAR-like craziness here, people.

PICK UP A JOHN!

If you've got some kind of problem with whipping around a smelly old oval office, let's face it: You're not really living in the country until you can pick up the john and toss it across someone's lawn. And what better way to get the kids off the couch and outside getting some physical exercise?

Now do this great sport a great favour, and share the YouTube videos with your friends. Be sure to hit the "like" button each time you see it. That's supposed to do something.

Readers, definitely try this at home. Start a "bowling" league. Write in with your favourite techniques. Get your toddlers in on the action with a potty toss. Who knows - it might even get them into university on a sports scholarship. Next stop: the Olympics. You know it, baby!

Btw, the top toss at our inaugural toilet toss-off was by Chris "The Toilet King," with a lob of 24 feet. Can you do better? Send in your results, and include pix. Thanks to Marie-Lyse for her photos and videos of this historic event. 

Discover the Eastern Townships: An Insider's Guide

Thanks to documentary maker Albert Nerenberg for this stunner of a shot of a heart-shaped lake near his home in the Glen, with Owl's Head looming behind.

When my wife Rhonda and I moved with our little girls to the charming village of Knowlton in Quebec's picturesque Eastern Townships, we looked forward to discovering this historic and beautiful region (see road map here). But we were surprised at how hard it was to find many of the gems it has to offer.

Where the Locals Go

Where can we find elk sausages or a good super-fresh cheese? Who sells the best, reasonably priced organic veggies? What's the best spa to recommend to visiting friends? What about a cool mountain stream to take a dip in or a shop for kids' clothes? Where do the locals go?

Amazingly, there didn't seem to be a resource that lists the best food and drink, lodgings or spas, winter and summer attractions or shopping and services, whether for locals or tourists. It was up to us to find these secret spots.

We turned into detectives as we talked to our new friends and scoured the internet and country backroads looking for those insider locales only the locals know about. We sometimes found even they don't know of some of the greatest secrets of this remarkable region.

Welcome to One of Quebec's Prettiest Regions

Sure, there are some tourism resources that offer lists of some of these things, but nothing like the insider's guide we were looking for.

That's a shame because the Townships is an amazing place full of spectacular scenery, friendly people, historic sites and fascinating, little-known finds - everything from out-of-the-way vineyards to stunning vistas. So I decided to create the resource we were looking for ourselves.

There's so much to discover in the Townships it'd take us years to track down all its best treasures. Being somewhat lazy people, we also figured a blog would help us learn more about our new home from readers and to share our finds.

Your Insider's Guide

This isn't meant as a comprehensive listing (click here for a map of all the places mentioned on this site) but instead a constantly growing collection of places and attractions we enjoy or value enough to share with you (complete with our highly subjective ratings and those of our friends, neighbours, readers of this blog and the usual whacky guys at the pub). We'll also include a few of the places we didn't like and why. Think of it as a budding insider's guide to one of Canada's most beautiful regions.

This site is still at a beginning phase; we'll update it as we learn more. We'd also like to do a "Best of the Townships" poll, so stay tuned. We invite you to share your discoveries, comments about places and events listed here or not, your ratings, photos and suggestions for this site.

Please let me know if you have any association with the listings you send. We want to keep this site as objective as possible. You can reach me by adding a comment to a post on this website or by emailing me at aroslin1-at-yahoo.ca.