Their cottage industry, Au Refuge du Vieux Loup de Mer, began a few years ago, after they had purchased a Swiss-style A-frame in the park to use as a getaway, a place to enjoy nature. They named it Pic-Bois, meaning woodpecker, because of the woodpeckers nearby. “It wasn’t very cute,” Gagnon remembers, but with an eye to creating an Adirondack-style cottage, they lined the walls and ceilings with cedar and installed red pine floors. They decorated using vintage furniture, with an emphasis on old-fashioned comfort.
Soon the partners launched a small rental business, buying other cottages and moving them to cliffside locations high above the water. Each cottage, complete with a pot-bellied stove, takes inspiration from seaside driftwood and local cedar, and is wood-lined in traditional rustic style. Like Pic-Bois, the cottages are named. For example, Le Navigateur’s title is for the anchors used for lighting in the 1894 whitewashed cottage, while the tiny Le Trappeur, built into the hillside, takes its name from the animal skins on the walls.
The largest of their cottages, Le Canadien, was built in 1890. “It has cedar walls, a moose head and all the furniture is vintage,” says Gagnon, who favours a mix of pieces like 1940s armchairs in the living room and pressback chairs from the late 1800s around the dining table. Walls and furniture are painted in earth and sea tones, offset by country white details. Leblond, an avid fisherman, created the living room table that displays dozens of individually tagged fisherman’s flies under glass. Unique touches extend to a coop with a dozen chickens and small potager garden to provide fresh eggs and herbs to visitors.
Gagnon and Leblond’s work has paid off. Visitors come to view the migratory birds in spring and fall, to bike in the summer or ski during the winter months, or to soak up the scenery around this coastal marine park, unique in Quebec, situated as it is between the villages of Saint Fabien and Le Bic. Country architecture lends a certain style to the town, and at Christmas, the pair delight in decorating their cottages with baubles and pine branches. “It’s very rustic, but with all the comforts of home,” Gagnon says contentedly.
If you go:
Au Refuge de Vieux Loup de Mer, (418) 725-5214, www.vieuxloupdemer.com
L’Auberge du Grand Fleuve, Métis-sur-Mer, (418) 936-3332, www.aubergedugrandfleuve.qc.ca
Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens), Grand Métis, (418) 775-2222, www.jardinsmetis.com
Folles Farines bakery, 113 Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Le Bic, (418) 736-8180
Read more in Out & About and Destinations
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