Sherbrooke Record e-Edition

New Prohibition Heritage Trail explores our temperate past

By Aiden Wilson Special to The Record

The Prohibition Heritage Trail put on by the Brome-missisquoi Tourism department recently finalized its preparations, with the attraction taking participants on a historic tour of the local area; included with it comes a dash of mystery and intrigue.

The trail covers characters, anecdotes and the various places that marked the temperance and prohibition period throughout the border region of Brome-missisquoi between 1848 and 1933.

Guylaine Beaudoin, tourism development consultant at CLD Bromemissisquoi, said, “a project involving the prohibition and temperance movement is one we’ve had for a long time. The only thing we didn’t know was how to get that information to people, so what we came up with was a circuit. It’s ten panels accompanied by audio recordings with a story set in the time period. It was fun because we really got to explore unique characters and settings in each one.”

“We looked into a lot of cultural history subjects like stagecoaches and such, and we really wanted an interesting topic to explore. When prohibition came up, we knew we could make something good out of it, and so the idea for the tour spread from there.”

The monochrome designs on each panel show a scene from the era with a style reminiscent of old-timey detective dramas and early 20th-century newspaper illustrations.

“The information on the ten panels is linked to the area they’re in, and we also made podcasts for each one. People can listen to the recordings either before going to see them or while they’re there, and there’s even a brochure to make sure you don’t get lost.”

“We worked with a local artist to make the panels. The voiceover was done with a voice actor who plays up the character and brings a lot of life to the recordings; he gives that prohibition era accent people associate with the time.”

The podcasts are in an infotainment style, combining historical facts with a story full of mystery and intrigue.

Writing for the story itself is credited to Laurent Busseau from Historien sans Frontière who wrote the work between 2020 and 2021.

“The trail stretches about 130 km and the great part is that it intersects with tons of interesting locations along the way. You go through the hearts of the villages, from Lac-brome to Sutton and Abercorn; while you’re there you can also stop to see what each place has to offer before continuing on the trail.”

Being so close to the border, places on the tour like Sutton and Abercorn

have a unique history involving prohibition, with fascinating stories of smuggling and gangs.

She said the trail also has a tie-in with another local project, that being the Ghosts & Other Doohickeys theatre production currently touring around the Townships.

“We also explored the character of Queen Lil with one of the podcasts and panels talking about this prohibition icon. We hadn’t even planned it, she was just an interesting character, and it made for a happy coincidence.”

The Ghosts & Other Doohickeys performance tells the story of Queen Lil and was recently performed in Sutton, where the sixth panel featuring her story also resides.

Their next show will be in Lac-brome on Aug. 14, another stop along the Prohibition Trail, and will be performed at the Lac-brome Museum, with more shows to come around the Townships.

Queen Lil is just one of the many historic characters people can learn about on tour, with others like Conrad Labelle, a faithful Al Capone ally, and Christopher Dunkin, a Brome County Member of Parliament, who was one of the instigators of the very first Prohibitionist Act in the United Province of Canada.

The podcasts and route can be found on their website at: tourismebromemissisquoi.ca/en/attractions/ prohibition-heritage-trail/

The site includes English and French versions of both the descriptions and podcasts for each panel along the route.

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2022-08-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

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