Sophie Kuijper Dickson
Pontiac March 21, 2022
Last month, Marc Bergeron shared a life update on his Facebook page that received over 100 shares and a similarly enthusiastic support from the comments section.
The post announced his family’s purchase of the old Quyon mill and their plans to restore its former function as a flour mill for locally grown grains.
They also plan to open a small retail shop for selling the products from their . . .
Bristol farm, La Paysannerie, and other products from the region.
“The mill was a continuity to our development because we wanted a store that would be easy access for people coming from Ottawa coming up to go to the cottage,” said Isabelle Lajoie, Bergeron’s business partner and wife. “We have so much variety in products that we wanted to offer it year-round.”
The pandemic-induced appetite for locally sourced products inspired Lajoie and Bergeron to go ahead with this new business endeavour.
The first step they will take is to set up the stone flour mill.
“That will pay the investments. And then we’re going to invest in the future addition towards the water,” Lajoie explained, describing their plans to construct a new space on the river side of the mill that will be home to the retail shop as well as other potential businesses.
“We’re not going to be the ones taking care of each little part, but we definitely want to put this infrastructure in place, and then maybe have partnerships with people who want to put their businesses in,” she said, describing her vision of sharing the space with a restaurant or bakery that makes use of the prime patio space along the Quyon river.
“We definitely have a vision for the community and for this to become a focal point for everybody to stop in.”
Before the pandemic, pork meat was a central product at Ferme La Paysannerie. When Bergeron and Lajoie realized how much grain it took to raise pigs, they began exploring the possibility of developing a local grain co-op with their neighbours.
When pandemic-induced supply-chain backlogs led them to abandon their pork business, and the mill came up for sale, they realized that there was potential to revive an old dream.
“We definitely want to try to keep the grain that is produced locally here, and mill it directly here, and sell it here,” Lajoie said. “That’s the main objective.”
She emphasized that while the stone-ground nature of their operation might classify it as artisanal, they will be offering larger volumes to local bakers looking for commercial quantities.
“We’ve already approached some of them to have an idea of volume and what kind of flour they’re actually using because we want to prioritize products that people will be able to use right away,” she said. “We’re not saying we’ll be as competitive as a very big commercial business, but we’re trying to get to a volume where the price will be interesting.”
Coronation Hall owner Norma Graham buys the ingredients for the business’s baked products. She usually sources her flour wholesale, and said she has no idea where it comes from.
“Canada grows enough wheat, we should be able to have all of our flour from here,” she said, adding that she will do whatever she can to support local products.
“Even if the price point were a bit higher, gas is expensive, transportation is expensive, so anything we can buy local, we will, and we’d be really happy to support them,” she said.
Lajoie said that while they would like to specialize in milling organic grain, they won’t be closing the door to non-organic wheat in their beginning stages.
“If we do try to push it, maybe it will bring producers to make the conversion as well, but it’s too early to say,” she said. “For now, there will probably be both.”
Jacques Lance, of L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet, is one of only a few organic grain producers in the region.
He said that while his yields haven’t been as high as he’d like them to be, he prefers to avoid the use of chemicals and protect the soil.
“Whenever I put in crops it’s a lot cheaper, all I have to pay for is the seed. I have no chemicals at all to pay,” Lance said. “And organic seed is cheaper than GMO, so what can I say?”
Lance sells his wheat for human consumption. Last year he sold 65 tonnes at $630 per ton to La Milanaise, an organic grain miller half an hour east of Montreal.
While he won’t have any wheat coming up this spring, he is open to the idea of selling grain to the mill down the road, that is as long as he can get the same price for it as he can elsewhere.
“It depends on how many tonnes they’d want,” he added. “If they just want five or 10 tonnes that could be done easily.”
The historical significance of bringing this mill back to life is not lost on Bergeron and Lajoie.
“It’s been really exciting with the folks on Facebook how many people have reached out to us to tell us a bit of the history of the mill,” said Lajoie, adding that they intend to open a small museum in the mill so that tourists can learn about the site’s history.
The building has stood empty since M & R Feeds moved out over ten years ago, but it is one in a long lineage of mills that were central to the establishing of Quyon as an economic hub in the region.
In 1846, during the peak of the timber industry, Irish lumber baron John Egan built a sawmill and a grist mill on the Quyon River.
Pine logs would arrive at the mill from upstream. The water-powered machinery transformed them into huge square timber, which were then directed via waterways, to Quebec, and onward to the British market.
By the 1850s, Quyon was the centre of the region’s largest business, and the mills that Egan constructed were essential to this economy.
Over time, the regional industry shifted from logging to farming, and the sawmill became obsolete.
What is thought to have been the grist mill burnt down and was rebuilt several times before, at the turn of the last century, the final iteration was constructed on the site where it still lives today.
This fall, Bergeron and Lajoie plan to bring life back to this historically significant site.
“We hope to be able to grind the first grain of this fall’s production,” said Lajoie.
