Mont-Orford National Park

Mount Orford National Park holds a unique place in Quebec's park history: its creation in 1938 resulted from an agreement between several surrounding municipalities, each contributing land to establish this protected territory initially dedicated to recreation, well before the emergence of formal environmental consciousness in Quebec. Mount Orford and Bald Mountain, which reach elevations of 853 and 599 metres respectively, dominate a landscape graced by Fraser and Stukely lakes, each lending their name to a distinct sector of the park. To commemorate Montreal's 1967 Expo, a camping area and the Orford Arts Centre were developed, an institution that remains renowned today, welcoming young classical musicians from around the world each summer as part of a prestigious training program. The park, which belongs to the natural region of the Sutton Mountains—the Quebec extension of Vermont's Green Mountains—offers an extensive network of year-round activities: hiking, mountain biking, boat rentals on Stukely and Fraser lakes, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in winter. An expansion project, following the controversy surrounding an attempted partial privatization of the territory in the early 2000s, aims to eventually nearly double the protected area to incorporate a new natural region representative of the mountain ranges of the Estrie, Beauce, and Bellechasse regions.