I was born in Granby, Quebec, Canada. It is a decent sized city, of a 65 000 population, about 45 minutes from Montreal. When I was 4 years old, my parents bought a house in Granby. Our house is now a century old, since 2020. I have many great memories, from my life in Granby. I spent 18 years there, before I moved to Montreal, to live with my ex boyfriend.
Granby is most famous for the Granby Zoo, and its landmark fountain of Lac Boivin. Granby is a flat region located approximately halfway, between Montreal and Sherbrooke. Granby has many parks and fountains, including the Daniel-Johnson, Victoria, Terry Fox, Miner, Pelletier, and Kennedy parks.
Lake Boivin, Daniel-Johnson park are amazing places with landscape, paths all around for bikers and pedestrians. They are a haven for all lovers of nature, as they harbor many type of wildlife. Touching the heart of the town, lake Boivin has park Daniel-Johnson, on its northern shores, from which citizens and tourists, practice recreational sports, such as navigation and cycling. The park also hosts events for Saint-Jean-Baptiste (This is like the 4th of July for American) The park’s premises are very popular for picnicking, during the summer and sleighing in the winter.
The Centre d’interprétation de la nature du lac Boivin is a non-profit, devoted to conservation of the territory, habitat, fauna and flora of lake Boivin. The center covers an area of approximately 1200 Acres, and welcomes approximately 180,000 people each year. There are four trails and a cycle path. The hike is located to the east of the lake and is the longest in the center with its 6 km. In the center, it is the best preserved trail, and where the natural balance, has been least affected, because it is much less busy, than other trails. It stops at the cycle path, which can be used to return to the reception pavilion. It is also open for cross-country skiing in winter. It’s home to over 20 different species of birds, 6 different species of mammals, and a few different species of insects, reptiles and snakes.
Yamaska National Park is a vast protected, humid zone around the Choinière reservoir with forest, beach, walking and biking paths, as well as navigable waters (only light non-motorized vehicles are permitted) it is an important bird sanctuary.
Park Victoria is the oldest urban garden in town. Purchased in 1889, and park landscaped in 1900, its name honors Queen Victoria (1876-1901). There are war memorials to Latimer (1901), for the soldiers killed in the Second Boer Wars, and the monument to the Braves, both accompanied by canons. Selbach fountain, inaugurated in 1982, rises on the corner of Dufferin street and Mountain boulevard. Two ponds connected by a small stream, large rock outcrops and a hilly terrain are its main geographical characteristics; its northeastern tip is fragmented by Lorne street; at its southernmost limits, the park touches Parkview, an English elementary school. In the warm months, free concerts are sometimes played in a gazebo.
Park Miner is the second oldest park in Granby; it was given to the town, by mayor Stephen Henderson Campbell Miner in 1910; today, it lies downtown and houses Piscine Miner (Miner pool), the municipal indoor public pool. A monument to the founders of Saint-Jean-Baptiste society was erected in 1934. The first community public art gallery in the region is installed by Atelier 19 to celebrate its ten years. During the summer, the park has tents installed to house different public activities, such as dance and music.
There are a lot of activities to do in Granby, year round. It’s your typical, family town. We don’t have a University, so people who seek higher education, will usually go to Montreal or Sherbrooke. Granby is a regional center for industries (textile, lumber, dairy products) and commercial zone, but is also a tourist town, due to the presence of the important Granby Zoo.
The international classic car show, takes place at parc Daniel-Johnston, with over 2500 antiques, vintage, hot rods, muscle cars and classic imported cars, every summer. Granby is also home to the Galeries de Granby, regional shopping mall, which has 106 stores. The Autodrome Granby, one of Canada’s largest dirt oval racing tracks, hosts professional racing teams every Friday night from May to September. Winner of many prizes, Autodrome Granby is known worldwide in the racing community.
In the winter time, we would go ice skating on the huge lake Boivin. There was also a tube sliding on the little hills at the same place, around the lake if you don’t want to ice skate. That was fun, when we were younger, my mother brought us to do these fun activities in the snow in the winter. In Quebec, winters can be very cold, but as the years go by, It is getting exceptionally warmer.
It is not uncommon now to have Christmas without snow which is very odd for that part of the world. That never used to happen when I was a kid. We would get very cold days, especially when it was not overcast, it was bitter cold ! So cold that it was almost painful to breathe, the cold air would burn my lungs. We never missed school because the weather was too cold or because there was a snowstorm. It was extremely rare back then, that we would miss school for these reasons.
I never liked winter. I was always happy when spring was around the corner. That is part of the good memories living there. I loved the snow melting, the trees slowly getting their leaves back, the bees coming out, the birds singing. In the spring, around my birthday, people would start harvesting maple from the trees!
Oh my god this syrup was so good ! If you never had maple syrup from Vermont, or Quebec it is a must, trust me ! It tastes nothing like store bought syrup. It has a sweet, not overwhelming, light taste of maple syrup that is SOOO good on pancakes or french toast. We would boil the maple from the trees and then spread it on cold snow and it would turn into a soft maple treat. It was so fun and so good ! We would use popsicle sticks to eat the maple syrup treat to enjoy it.
Maple syrup treat
After people would harvest their syrup, once a year in the spring, for about 2 months, there would be a special spring buffet. We would go as a group with my father’s co-workers or our family on my father’s side and we would enjoy either lunch or supper at those places that offered a lot of different “Breakfast meals” buffet or other things made with maple syrup !
Typical meal served, beans, omelet, potatoes, eggs, ham, etc.
Granby has always been a very family oriented city, with a lot of activities for families, to enjoy in the summer and in the winter. Our summers on the other hand, were always hot and sticky and I mean, Texas hot and sticky ! We get a lot of thunderstorms in the summer, which make the area super hot and humid.
Granby has a lot of parks, rivers, and lakes surrounding it. There is a lot of fishing for everyone. There is a lot of wildlife to observe as well. We have a zoo, many pubs, the food is really good there as well. You have to try our famous Poutine.
When summer is over, fall is around the corner. That means back to school again. I love fall. Eastern Canada has the most beautiful fall season. That’s when our maple trees change color, from green to yellow, orange, red creating an amazing scenery for beautiful pictures. Fall in my country is very special. I loved walking on a late evening, feeling the light warm breeze on my face and watching the leaves fall from the trees. It does not get any prettier and more relaxing than that. I do miss our fall season from back east, when I used to live there. After living in Wyoming, Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, I can say for sure that Quebec has a stunning early fall season.
It’s not cheap to live in here. We managed on one salary, with my father working and my mother staying at home, with 5 kids, but it was the very strict minimum. The food is not cheap and the cost of living isn’t either.
I hear a lot of people saying that they wished their healthcare was free like Canada, but it isn’t free, we pay it through our very high taxes. Just because something is free doesn’t mean it’s better ! In fact, since living in the United States, I would say that I would rather pay for a better service, than having no service at all, because it’s free. People do not realize that it is very hard to get a family doctor nowadays, near almost impossible.
We don’t have enough doctors and nurses and a lot of people are left, without being able to even see one, as they get older. Did you know that it can take almost 19 hours to be seen at the emergency in a hospital ? If your case is not urgent, and by that I mean, near death, you will have to wait a very long time to be seen.
When I burned my hand with hot boiling water, I was alone in my apartment with no means to get to the hospital. I couldn’t call an ambulance, because there was a fee, and the pain was so unbearable that I almost passed out ! I certainly wouldn’t have waited 12 hours to be seen, with a burned hand. I sucked it up and took care of it on my own at home.
Our wait list for heart, liver, kidney transplant is awful, just like in the United States. You can die waiting for a chance to get a transplant. Everywhere has their flaws in their way to manage their healthcare. Nowhere is perfect. Healthcare, just like veterinarians, dentist, is just very expensive in general. The best way to avoid all those costs, is really to just stay healthy, unless you really have an emergency.
I noticed another thing that is different from our hospital in Quebec and in the United States. The waiting time in the United States is almost nonexistent ! When I had to go in a couple times, I never had to wait very long. That’s because the healthcare here is not free. It can be very expensive, especially in an emergency. In Quebec, because it’s free, people go in for nonsense, like migraines, coughs, flu, common cold, a cut, things like that. So this just makes the waiting awful. People just abuse the system because it’s free. You don’t see any of that in the United States.
On the other hand, if you are really sick and need emergency care, a hospital cannot refuse to give you care. It will cost you a lot if you don’t work, and don’t have health insurance. But people need to realize that going to the emergency, really needs to be an emergency.
I was lucky when I lived in Oregon, about 10 years ago, when I got my appendicitis, it would have cost me 15000$, but I had emergency coverage back then, so I did not have to pay anything. My husband works and through his work, we have health coverage. We still have to pay a certain amount of money out of pocket though, before they cover everything, and we still have a copay to pay as well, which is not much.
Wherever you live, just look at every option you have to help you. But all in all, my hometown is a very outdoorsy place, for anyone who loves the outdoors, and wants to raise a family. Quebec is a very pretty area to live.