Eira Thoma's Yard Emporium

Hidden treasure: Eira Thomas's Yarn emporium in the glen

By Nancy Helmuth
Sometimes, the lovliest things around us are hidden small architectural details that go unnoticed or beautful flowers in a valley less travelled. One such treasure is Eira Thomas (71), Welsh born artist, knitter and seller of exquisit yarns to connoiseurs who have known how to find her place in Glen Sutton since 1980.
Located on Burnett road, and in a house which was constructed in the late 1880s, Eira's creations can be seen in a lovely studio built for her by her late husband, internationally known furniture designer and builder Kai Paulson whose woodshop can still be seen in the basement of the home. "Kai made all the furniture in the house and in the addition which houses four tastefully decorated warm small apartements which friends and acquaintances rent for small vacations, weekends or bicycle outings".
Of late, Eira has curtailed her knitting to special editions and custom work,  but has focused her energy into "Yarn Art", finely crafted pictures and harmonious creations of yarns and textiles, glowing through their three dimensional effects.

Eira arrived in Montreal in 1974 and immediately had huge amounts of work in her original profession as floral designer."It was a magic time, a gay time" she smiles, Montreal at that time was a gracious and fun place, huge parties were given, the great hotels kept us busy with the flower arrangements and we worked for all the great houses. It was such an open beautiful time. At night we would meet at the "Bistro" on Mountain street, a hangout for immigrants of many countries and a place for us to exchange views and make friends".
Her mother died, and Eira had to liquidate her mother's knitting business, which started the second vocation in her life and she eventually started focusing on this, but first she spent two years at the Montreal Star newspaper as an advertising executive for retail and national advertising. After the "Star" folded in 1978, she worked for the glossy Montreal Calendar Magazine. Having married Kai Paulson who at that time was designing furniture for companies such as Scandia Furniture and who was honored for his work at the international furniture exhibition in Milan, they moved to his house in Glen Sutton where he established the existing shop pretty much for his own use and the building of exquisite pieces which now are in the house.
The yarn shop and knitting studio started then and has been in business ever since. "I used my own money, the severance pay from the "Star" to start my business - a lot of the other girls just spent it". For more than 20 years Eira also participated in the annual "Tour des Arts" and sadly, last year her husband died four days before the opening of the "Tour". Friends helped out and kept the doors open, and eventually, this indomitable creative knitter went back to her craft and is certainly open for business, with thousands of yarns, some exotic, many "free trade" from South America, all gleaming in their neat racks which Kai so lovingly built.

Chris Payne

The incomparable Chris F. Payne

By Manfried Helmuth Starhemberg
If there would be an award for having had more fun in a lifetime, than should be legally allowed, Glen Sutton's Chris Payne  would be a serious contestant. Born in Newbury in Britain's Berkshires, 77 years ago, he was consripted into the British  army's Ordinance Suvey Office where after two years he was made Sergeant. "I did all the printing at the Joint Services Staff Office", he chuckles. "After we passed all the secret documents to the staff officers to read, it became my job to bring the documents to a pulp mill under armed escort for destruction, It felt like I was destroying nuclear bomb secrets at times:.
Chris stayed in the reserves for three years after this service and got a job with the "Ordinance Supply  Offiice" in Buckinghamshire and after this stint went out on his own as free lance photographer, mainstay and chief interest for the rest of his life. But he also built his own radio transmitter for model aircraft, another interest he still enjoys.
Among the fun jobs he had was one as a beach photographer for the major seaside resorts in Devonshire. He worked out of an old gun shelter which was his darkroom. He also acted as in-house photographer for a large furniture company and had a parallel job as night manager of a local cinema. The list of his jobs and assignments is endless.
 In 1957 he married and one week later he and his wife moved to Montreal. "I wanted a change and I tossed a coin - Australia or Canada ? Canada won and I am still here"
The marriage lasted only a little bit over a year but Chris was by then well established as printer, dot-etcher and lithographer, ensconed in the Union with a card which he kept for many years. "I went back to photography but when there were not enough jobs, I could always work in one of the many printing plants in Montreal" he explains. Eventually his work, mainly as an architectural photographer took off big time and he operated out of large facilities on Dorchester street.
"I had almost all the good architects and architectural magazines as clients, I had a big place, an assistant and a Porsche". In 1967 he bought a beautiful former Anglican residence in Glen  Sutton and began to spend his spare time there."Then I decided to go to the Bahamas for a couple of years, where I started photographing conventions, tourist events and hotel photography. It was a great time but very little money". After that it was a spell in New Orleans and then back to Montreal. There were always jobs for the talented man and he began to indulge in another enterprise in which he was busy until just a few months ago: He became a bookseller.
I met Chris almost two decades ago and broused in his small store in Glen Sutton where we discovered that we had a friend in commen, the late Montreal writer Don Bell. Don was also in the book business as was I at my Sherbrooke street store in Montreal. Bell's store was known by his nickname "The Bookman", thus the younger man, Chris Payne would be called "Bookboy" by Bell which made me the "Bookkid" as the youngest of us three. Chris took over the basement section of a Sutton bookstore to sell his used and rare books, after Don Bell passed away I owned his store for two years but there was no money to be made in used books and I gave it up. Chris carried on and his interest in buying rare or simply interesting books has not changed to this day.

Now he is busy in the house he shares with long time partner Michelle Lalonde, a noted mosaic artist. Chris does construction, builds underpinnings for the mosaics  and has the most beautifully landscaped garden. In the time I have known him he has never been seriously ill, he is just too busy enjoying life to let silly things like careful ageing interfere with his future plans...

Michelle Lalonde, Glen Sutton's Mosaic Artist

Glen Sutton's great Mosaic artist Michelle LaLonde

By Manfried Helmuth Starhemberg
Former world traveller, French teacher and Glen Sutton resident, Michelle Lalonde makes mosaics. I have known this lovely 64 year old woman who lives with my great friend Chris Payne, a noted photographer, in her beautiful and bucolic home in Glen Sutton for almost two decades."Why mosaics", I asked her when I visited Saturday.
"It started about four years ago" explains Michelle.
"I was in the waiting room of a doctor's office and picked up a magazine which had a story about mosaics. It fascinated me enough to start making my own".  As an educated woman, she got the books, did the research and begun at first with flower pots. From flower pots she went to garden art, mirrors, decorative glass scenes that can hang in a window and act as beautiful light savers. There is no end to the georgeous creations she makes which now sell well and are cherished by many repeat customers.
I love the one she did where a person brought in an old Polish passport and a picture of the immigrant ship which brought the people to Canada. It still can be opened to every page of the passport but is lovingly ensconed with period decorations including Polish coins.

When you enter Michelle's yard you may see her "garden art" which may be balls of mosaic, Mandalas which are superbly crafted  glass creations set in rod iron work, some of them a good eight feet tall, or you may trip over some of her great balls of mosaic endowed spheres.

Michele Lalone also gives courses in mosaic making and at $ 135.- up to four persons can enjoy a day in a well equippedl studio in one of the nicest settings in the townships. Coffee and tea and all the required materials from glass to glue, are provided for free and the participants are encouraged to bring their own lunch which they may enjoy in the well planted outdoors maintained by my friend Chris Payne.
The latest addition to the passion of Michelle Lalonde are mirrors. "I love doing mosaics around mirrors" she explained when showing off the dozens of delightful creations which seem to be everywhere. "This is my favorite, she stated", showing off an all white mirror which features sea shells, discarded jewelry and pearlescent glass:

Michelle has had successful shows in Sutton and her work has been purchased by many local inns, B&B's and hotels and her enthusiasm, mainly throug the courses she conducts is magnetic. She sparkles with joy, she is possibly the youngest 64 year old I have ever met and her work is outstandingly beautiful. To see her current portfolio go to:
www.mylalondemosaics.com

Suttons Tractor King

Jean Thibault the tractor king of the townships

By Manfried Helmuth Starhemberg
The above gentleman might look like your grumpy old grandfather who just caught you smoking in the back of the barn, but he is possibly the kindest and most enjoyable person I have met since Nancy and I moved to Sutton some 11 years ago. He is Jean Thibault (73), the king of tractors and owner of dozens of them. A graduate master mechanic of some five decades, Jean built himself a house and large garage just outside of Sutton in 1964 and started to collect and restore tractors. Now this place is just a very nice old man's personal museum. "I restored every one myself, from head gaskets to valves, rings and bearings. Every one of them is in perfect operational order". Well, I looked at at a 1940's Massey Ferguson and Jean just leaned over and turned the key. The big monster coughed once and then roared into life. And the same happened with the twelve others on display in the driveway. Every single tractor lives! "Every tractor could go back in the field today and do a good day's work" chuckles Jean. "They were made to last, from my 1936 iron wheeled monster to the young ones built in the '40's"

 Jean has the incredible enthusiasm of a fanatic. The tractors are not for sale,they represent a lifetime of enjoyment of things mechanical. There is magic in the place, when I walk from machine to machine and the generous racounteur tells about where they had lived and worked. "This one comes from Dunkin and worked for 40 years, this old blue thing I got from Mansonville". Every tractor on display has operated more than a normal machine's expected lifetime to till and plow, mow, irrigate and hay. Those machines are living, breathing, lovingly restored pieces of industry that have made farming in Quebec possible and profitable. The hundreds of hours that Mr. Thibault spent on saving them shall stand as a great  testimony to the farmers who probably had to mortgage their houses to afford the machines to work their land.


In the back yard there are tractors yet to be repaired. Jean is full of enthusiasm about them. There is an old Ford, an Allis Chambers, there are wrecks no sane person would look at, but  for this indomitable mechanic they are just :"the next job to be done"
"Every tractor I own has it's own original service manual, from the 1936 to the 1950's" explains Jean, and he proudly displayed the hundreds of books he posesses. There are the most intricate drawings of transmissions of tractors built when Hoover was president of the United States, there are manuals and parts lists of units that were used in World War II and if you want to see them in action, they all are ready to go to the front agaion because Jean has kept them in that impeccable condition.

So, what does my new friend Jean do for relaxation? "Well, I have a collection of about 50 trains in the back of the shop". I followed him there and there is an area of probaly 20 meters by 16 meters of train layouts with German Merklin locomotives by the dozens, rare Lionels, hundreds of cars, yards of track and track infrastructrure.
And the beauty of all this can be found in this picture: This is a tractor that nobody in his sound mind would ever bother to look at but Jean can just see it next to his priceless antiques in his front yard as soon as he gets to it:

New Bicycle Shop for Sutton

New bicycle shop opens in Sutton

By Manfried Helmuth Starhemberg
"Every bicycle is worth fixing", states Joel Jobin (36), the owner of "La Vie Dehors", a bicycle shop which opened this week in Sutton. The shop is situated on main street right next to the Sutton river, but will move to another location directly across the street this fall. Four avid bicyclists had purchased a dilapidated building which was recently torn down and construction is about to begin at what will be an architectturally pleasing bicycle mecka. Other than Joel's bicycle shop, there will be a bar and lounge and eight rooms upstairs which can be rented by cyclists on a nightly basis. There will also be free outside showers, a great idea and a novel concept.
Even in the current shop, a road weary biker may avail him or herself of a shower. The cyclists who are creating the new facility had known about Joel's ambitions to start a shop in Sutton and they all got together to make this happen. Joels partner is his life partner and mother of their son, Catherine Gaulin, who has business management experience.
Joel Jobin holds a professional degree in industrial mechanics but has worked most of his life with bicycles, more then five years  in Vancouver where he also was a bicycle and motorcycle courier. "Like all courier jobs it ended with that big crash that sent me to the hospiral and afterwards to three months of rehab. This was the end of my courier career", muses the jovial Joel.
"After that it was work as a mechanic, first out of my own small shop, then as a manager of a bicycle shop in Victoria. I met my partner in B.C. and we have been together ever since. Eventually, the Montreal born Joel decided they would move "back East" and he has worked in a number of upscale bicycle shops in Montreal, Brossard and Ste. Hyacynthe, where he was shop manager until the family moved to Sutton to begin "The Great Adventure" of owning their own place.
La Vie Dehors features three highly esteemed lines of bicycles "Pinarello", "Kona" and "Kuota" , and the shop carries a line of helmets, cycle clothing and of course all the tubes, tires, parts and accessories today's sophisticated cycling crowd demands.

 Joel is passionate about bicycles and eventually wishes to establish a Sutton cycling club, get involved in teaching children mechanics and speaks of his desire to get involved in the community. "We just opened and I have to focus on the business but we are already formulating ways in which we can get young people involved in cycling".
Sutton is an obvious choice for such a shop as approximately 40 percent of the summer and fall tourist trade is hikers and bikers and the city is doing its utmost to maintain clean and safe bike paths and a bicycle friendly environment with ample parking behind the post office and other spots for tourist to leave their vehicles and enjoy the ride. And every year there is the big international bicycle race in July and numerous other small events to attract the two wheeled crowd.
Pricing at "La Vie Dehors" is also consumer friendly with tune-up's starting at $ 50.- and a complete re-build from the bare frame up is about $ 135.- This is about half the price I have been quoted today by three prominent shops in Montreal and should entice tourist to have their mounts maintained in Sutton.
Joel's favourite bicycle? "My 1945 large wheeled C.C.M single speed". If this is not passion for bicycles I don't know what is....

Our Wedding Anniversary

A magical evening at Knowlton's storied Lakeview Inn

Just us....


Drazen Tomic "Tomi" and owner Van Voutsinas


Chef Tomo Kovacek


By Manfried H. Starhemberg
A month ago we made a reservation at Knowlton's storied Lakeview Inn for our wedding anniversary dinner. Not knowing that the day after Easter Monday, the inn would be closed, we were surprised by a courteous telephone call asking  "if it would bother us to be the only guests in the dining room ?"
Of course not", I answered, feeling bad that this was obviously a slow night for this fabled restaurant. Well, when we got there, we discovered that owner Van Voutsinas had rounded up Tomo and Tomi to give us the best possible anniversary dinner they could provide. For the first time in a long time (believe me when I say that this is rare !), I was speechless.
"Tomo" is Tomo Kovacec the brillant chef, "Tomi" is Drazen Tomic, maitre d' extraordinaire. Both gentlemen as well as Mr. Voutsinas who has owned the inn since 2002 exemplefied for us the highest degree of  the lost art of hospitality. Over the 40 years of married life, we have had many opportunities to dine in much celebrated restaurants, meet many "starred" celebrity chefs and pedigreed owners. This evening made all of our prior dining experiences fade into memory.
After chatting with Van who is a displaced Floridian with a passion for Knowlton and his 1874 Loyalist mansion, Tomo disappeared into the kitchen and Tomi escorted us into the lovely dining room where a table had been prepared for us, flickering candle included.
The Honorable Arthur Meighen, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Right Honorable Robert Borden, former Prime Ministers of Canada, have all dined there, possibly at about the same spot where we were seated, but I doubt they had the same lovely background music or ate as well as we did.
"Forget the menu" grinned the two conspirators Tomo and Tomi. "We are ready for you and you just have to eat what you get".
What we got to start with was a velety smooth seafood bisque and we both decided that if there was nothing else to eat, we would both drive home happy. But not so. A sublime hot Foi Gras, beautifully arranged with croutons and a sauce which was delicate but not intrusive graced the table and was gobbled up rapidly. Next arrived a plate of lamb shank slow cooked over some 18 hours and so tender that Tomi suggested that I should not need a knife. He was right. The morsels separated by the merest touch of my fork, yet had not been overcooked. A fine sauce accompanied this dish. Nancy received a superb fillet of salmon and we kept swapping dishes so that be both could enjoy the delicacies.
And then dessert. I stop right here, because as I am writing this, I wish I had some more of Tomo's wife's luscious cheese cake, the velvety slice of pie and other lovely things we were allowed to sample. Tomo and Tomi were both born and raised in the former Yugoslavia and Tomo had four years of schooling in traditional mediterranean cuisine but has had no trouble waving his magic wand over a whole array of varietions on the theme "Brome Lake Duck", which is a standard fare on the menu.
For you regular people out there who do not get the whole house for yourselves for an evening, you may be consoled: The inn offers a Pub Platter for two for only $ 50.- which includes a good bottle of wine. The Pub is a lovely friendly place full of ambience.On Fridays it is roast beef special night ,which starts at 6pm, and every day you may avail yourselves of a delicately seasoned 11 oz pork chop served with grilled roasted potatoes,  vegetables and apple strudel for a mere $ 11.95.
I shall quote from the Inn's website as I could not put it better myself:

Upon setting foot in Lakeview Inn, you can immediately feel all the grandeur and enchantment of a glorious past. You can also read the history of the Inn and see nostalgic pictures on the walls.

Throughout the establishment you will notice the concern for authenticity in each detail and in the superb collection of antiques.
Lakeview Inn distinguishes itself by the quality of its hospitality and customer service, as evidenced by the honours won during the 2000 Quebec Grand Prix du Tourisme contest for the Eastern Townships in lodging category and the 2003 Quebec Grand prix du Tourisme held in the Eastern Townships in Gastronomy category.
In my part of Europe where I was raised, it was a tradition, probably long now forgotten, that, when one was extremely pleased with a chef or a kitchen, the head of the houshold would gather up the empty plates and return them to the kitchen to thank the chef or staff in person. This I did and with this small gesture ended a memorable wedding anniversary dinner in a place I am certain to get "frequent flier" miles at. I just hope that the to be wed Royal couple in London will eat as good as we did...
Thanks, Van, Tomo and Tomi!

Domaine Bresee

Winery and Beef farm Bresee thrives in Sutton Junction

Stacey and Parker, the "worm boy" at their boutique
 By Manfried H. Starhemberg
Five year old Parker Bresee greeted me with a cheerful "We are going fishing and I just dug up worms. Want to see them?" What a nice opening to my visit to the winery and beef farm of a delightful young couple, Richard Bresee, wife Stacey Richardson and the great kids Vanessa, Mackenzie, Parker and Gavin.
The "Domaine Bresee" is located on the top of Draper hill, just on the fringe of Sutton Junction and the family has been at it for more than ten years. Now the winery encompasses approximately 15,500 vines and the adjoining farm has grazing for more than 100 cattle. The grapes are St.Croix, imported hardy plants from Minnesota and the cattle are all Charolais.
"We had one hundred but just sold 50 head last week" explaines Stacey. The cattle are all organic, hormone and antibiotic free and the meat sold by the Bresee family complies with the highest available government ratings. "We cannot even slaughter locally because the abattoir has to comply to standards not available in the immediate region. All our processing is done at St. Alphonse, and we bring the stock there in our own trailer". Even there the love for her enterprise shone through: "We just bring two at a time because we do not wish to get them nervous".
The meat, available in all commercial cuts, as well as the superb sausages I have often eaten, are flash frozen and packed on the spot to assure the utmost cleanliness and freshness. "We will also cut to acustomer's personal preference and specification. Whatever they want they can get as long as we have enough lead time to process a specific special order."
Being a family vineyard, the family motif shows in the names of the wines: The lovely rose is named "Nessa" after daughter Vanessa,  Cuvee Mackenzie-Parker is a red wine aged in oak barrels named after the two boys and Stacey says: "Gavin (3yrs)  soon we will be bottling a late harvest dessert wine called Gavin."

The equipent at the winery is exquisite and ranges from the most beautifully crafted stainless steel vats to lovingly built oak barrels for the specialty wines, which need careful and long ageing. Everything is done on the premises, the pressing, fermentation cycles, ageing and clarification, bottling, corking and labelling. The labels are elegant and understated and customers may taste a sample in the boutique. Domaine Bresee  also gives vineyard tours, has a fine chalet for rent, a well stocked fish pond (a special attraction seems to be the "feeding of the fish"). Richard and Stacey even invite people to come and picnic on their property which alone sets the farm apart from many other wineries that are part of the "Wine Route" in the townships.
Now to the good part: I purchased a couple of bottles of Bressoc 2006 and while I am composing this, I am enjoying a glass of this richly colored red, the fruit of all the years that go into maturing grapes, have a first harvest and then make it into wine. This one has a rich nose, it smells fresh and fruity and even after having been decanted one hour ago at room temperature, is vibrant with a slight touch of blackberry flavor. For comparison's sake, I also decanted a bottle of French "Roc Franche Valle'e" of comparable vintage and composition, but found the French wine to have too much tannin and an indistinguished aftertaste while the Bressoc left a clean palate (and the desire to have a second glass).
I have yet to sample the white or the rose but from my first experience as a writer, whose relatives have owned vineyards in the Wachau region of Austria since the 15th century, my family's cellar masters would be very satisfied to consistently produce a wine as good as the bottle I just sampled!