🦫 The Forest Lights Up Again — This Week in the Townships

Hey there, Townshippers

Summer officially clocks in this week, and the region is ready for it. Our lead: on Friday night, the Parc de la Gorge de Coaticook flips the lights back on for Foresta Lumina, and the enchanted forest is open for another season. We've also got a wine-and-horses weekend in Bromont, a 19th-century woollen mill pulling off a Quebec first, and a Magog listing that won't scare your budget.

Let's get into it. 👇

Here's a confession a lot of Townshippers will recognize: some of us have lived less than an hour from the Parc de la Gorge de Coaticook for years and still haven't done the night walk. This is the summer to fix that.

On Friday, June 19, Foresta Lumina switches its lights back on for another season — and if you've never seen it, picture this. You arrive after dark, the day's heat finally breaking, and step onto a 2.6-kilometre trail that winds through the forest above the Coaticook gorge. Lanterns glow. Trees seem to breathe colour. A soundtrack follows you from one clearing to the next, and the whole walk is built around a story — a luminous legend of the gorge, told in light, projection, and a fair bit of magic.

Foresta Lumina is the work of Moment Factory, the Montreal multimedia studio behind immersive shows in airports, stadiums, and national parks around the world. That's the part worth sitting with: one of the most in-demand experiential studios on the planet built one of its signature night walks here, in a town of barely 9,000 people — and it's been drawing visitors from across Quebec, and across the border, for more than a decade.

It still works because it doesn't talk down to you. Kids treat it like an adventure; adults treat it like a slow, beautiful walk in the woods that happens to be lit by something other than the moon. Bring a date, drag the whole family along, or save it for the out-of-town guests who think the Townships are "just countryside" and watch them change their minds about a kilometre in.

A few practical notes. The 2026 season runs from June 19 right through to October 11, with the walk opening at nightfall — so start times drift later in June and earlier come fall. Through July it runs most evenings (closed Sundays and Tuesdays), and tickets are strongly recommended before you go rather than at the gate. The trail is groomed but unpaved and has some grade to it, so closed shoes beat sandals, and the gorge stays genuinely cool after dark — bring a layer.

Here's the case for going early rather than "sometime": the forest is at its greenest right now, the bugs haven't fully organized, and you'll have the whole summer to recommend it to everyone you know. That's the thing about the good stuff in our own backyard — we save it for when company visits, and then a decade slips by. Not this year.

Source 👉 Eastern Townships | Foresta Lumina

🍷 Bromont Wine Festival — Saturday–Sunday, June 20–21 — Bromont: A full weekend of Quebec vintages, local producers, and food pairings at the foot of the mountain. Bromont knows how to throw a summer event, and a wine festival the same weekend the patios hit full swing is about as easy a yes as it gets. Go thirsty; bring a designated driver. Details 👉 easterntownships.org/events

🐴 Bromont International Combined Driving Event — Thursday–Sunday, June 18–21 — Bromont: Part dressage, part off-road obstacle course, all horsepower — the literal kind. Carriage-driving teams compete over four days, and it's genuinely fun to watch even if you've never been near a stable. Outdoors and a great one for the kids. Details 👉 easterntownships.org/events

🎵 Bobby Bazini — Seul au cinéma — Friday, June 19 — Frelighsburg: One of Quebec's most soulful voices, stripped back and up close in tiny Frelighsburg. This is the kind of show people drive an hour for and talk about all summer. If you can still get a seat, take it. Details 👉 easterntownships.org/events

😂 Dominic Paquet — J'comprends la Game — Friday, June 19 — Magog: High-energy, no-cynicism stand-up from one of the province's most reliable laughs, right in the heart of Magog. A solid Friday-night option if your French is up to it — bring the group and grab dinner downtown first. Details 👉 easterntownships.org/events

🎭 Monsieur le Maire — Thursday, June 18 — Eastman: Live theatre in Eastman to start the weekend early. A small-venue night out in one of the prettier corners of the region — exactly the kind of low-key, glad-we-went evening that's easy to forget exists until you go. Details 👉 easterntownships.org/events

🧶 A 19th-century woollen mill just pulled off a Quebec first: The Moulin à laine d'Ulverton has layered augmented reality and 3D audio over its historic mill tour — a first for the province. Translation: you walk the same 170-year-old building, but the looms, the workers, and the river that powered it all come back to life around you. Worth the detour to Ulverton. Source 👉 Eastern Townships

🚴 Granby's trail network just got a lot longer: The Circuit des Trois Lacs now links the Estriade bike path into Brome-Missisquoi — a 74-kilometre round-trip that strings together lakes, villages, and a lot of patio stops. If you've been looking for a reason to dust off the bike, this is it. Source 👉 Eastern Townships

📸 Magog, as you've never quite framed it: Maison Merry's new exhibition, Carte mémoire, maps downtown Magog through photography — a portrait of the streets you walk past without really looking. A quiet, lovely way to spend an hour out of the sun. Source 👉 Eastern Townships

⭐ Townships tables earn Michelin attention: Several restaurants across the region picked up recognition in the 2026 Michelin Guide — a real nod for a food scene that's been quietly punching above its weight for years. Consider it your excuse to finally book the place you keep meaning to try. Source 👉 Eastern Townships

🤝 Townships 4-H kids are trading places with Alberta: A youth exchange is connecting young Townshippers with rural Alberta through the 4-H program — farm kids swapping fields, skills, and a few thousand kilometres. The kind of small, good thing that doesn't make headlines but quietly shapes a kid's whole year. Source 👉 Sherbrooke Record

A Magog address that won't break the budget — $695,000: Magog tends to make people do quick, painful math — lake town, ski-hill-adjacent, the kind of place weekenders fall for and then price themselves out of. So a three-bedroom on Rue Degré listed at $695,000 is worth a second look. You're inside one of the Townships' most liveable towns: minutes from the Lake Memphrémagog waterfront, the downtown café strip, and the trails at Mont Orford, with the marina and festival season basically on your doorstep. It's not a lakefront trophy — it's the version of Magog you could actually live in year-round.

👉 View the full listing here

Foresta Lumina got us thinking about all the local stuff we keep meaning to do and somehow never get to. What's the Townships experience that's been on your list the longest — the trail, the restaurant, the festival, the night walk — that you still haven't done? Hit reply and tell us. We might just build a summer bucket list out of your answers.

That's a wrap for this week. If this one handed you a weekend plan — or at least a reason to finally book that night walk — do us a favour and forward it to the friend who always asks "what is there even to do around here?" We'll be back next Thursday with more of what's worth your time in the Townships.

Until then — get outside, chase a sunset over the lake, and enjoy the long days while they last. ✌️

— The Eastern Townships Now team 🦫

Know more. Explore more. Every Thursday.

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Photo credits: Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac by Paul Hurteau & Claude Parent (CC BY-SA 3.0); Moulin à laine d'Ulverton by Cantons-de-l'Est (CC BY-SA 4.0). Via Wikimedia Commons.