Estérel and Ste-Marguerite du Lac Masson

Lac Masson is one of the prettiest lakes in the Laurentians—more than 155 square km (60 square mi) of clear water surrounded by low-lying hills covered with a mixed evergreen-deciduous forest. The two villages that share its shores are only a few miles apart, but quite different in nature. St-Marguerite is the quintessential Laurentian settlement—a scattering of homes and businesses, including several decent restaurants, and one superior one. Estérel, on the other hand, is a village in name only. It traces its roots back to 1920 when the Belgian Baron Louis Empain bought all the land around the lake with the intention of building a major resort to be named after the Esterel massif in Provence, France. He never succeeded, but in 1959, Fridolin Simard bought 5,000 acres of the estate and built the hotel here. He also managed to get the resort incorporated as a village. In the fall of 2010, the resort reopened after a five-year, multimillion-dollar renovation. At this writing details of the resort's facilities were unavailable.