Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent

Visitors from large North American cities were astounded by the region’s landscapes: This was a healthy place! Local habitants, however, worked unrelentingly to farm the often poor and rocky land. But is unhappiness possible surrounded by such beauty? Can illness strike, living out here so far from the city? Some aspects of the country life gave rise to envy among summer people and tourists alike.

Taken in Saint-Octave-de-Métis, this photo could have been in many Lower St. Lawrence villages where the forest reclaimed its due, at least in part.