COLUMN: The Carillon Flashback August 27, 1986 – Twin River Farm offers bed, breakfast

by WES KEATING

Although it is a distance from the city, the setting is definitely right, and ever since Colleen and Claude Lord opened their La Broquerie area turn-of-the-century farmstead as a bed and breakfast, families have been visiting their place at a steady rate.

The farm buildings are situated in a heavily treed area, well back from the road. Near the barn, several horses graze contentedly in a small meadow and just behind a fenced-in corral on the other side, the Seine River makes a gentle curve.

The farm offers a tranquil place for a family to spend time – to unwind and relax – and enjoy a full-course country breakfast in the pleasant dining room. Although the program is advertised as “bed and breakfast”, visitors may stay as long as they choose, eating all meals at the farm if arrangements are made.

The Lords say they are not out to “entertain” guests, who have the options of spinning, helping with garden work, taking hay rides or just sitting in the sun and reading.

“City people often wish to see the sunrise, hear a rooster crow, listen to the calm – to them, these things are priceless.”

Others who grew up on a farm, then moved into urban life, are nostalgic and wish to relive some of their youth. Still others want their children to experience farm life firsthand, Lord says.

Although “bed and breakfast” places are a well-known concept in eastern Canada, and of course in Europe, it is still a relatively new idea on the prairies.

Ten years ago, Claude bought several hundred acres of land, much of it still unbroken and then left to work in construction in Churchill, where he met his wife Colleen, who taught school part-time and, because of her deep interest in crafts, worked with the Arctic Trading Company, dealing in Inuit arts and handcrafts.

After their marriage, early in 1985, the Lords decided to make their home on Claude’s property.

Colleen says living in the country, doing what farm life demands, as well as meeting people from all over through the bed and breakfast program, draws together all her interests,

Colleen keeps a large garden and preserves most of the vegetables they need for the year. In winter, she cooks over an old woodstove and most of the time bakes her own bread from home-ground flour.

The farmhouse, a solid two-storey structure, is an old convent, built in 1919, of durable British Columbia fir, and moved from La Broquerie a year-and-a-half ago. The Lords are restoring the building, room by room, to its original look.

Claude sold most of his land, keeping 100 acres to grow hay and grain to feed a small herd of cattle. The Lords butcher their own meat and keep a flock of chickens to supply them with fresh eggs. One milking cow provides them with all the cream and milk they need.

Both Colleen and Claude appreciate simple, wholesome food and all their crops are organically grown.

Claude uses two powerful Percheron horses to bring in loads of firewood as well as hitching them up for hay or sleigh rides.

The Lords’ guests have been mostly from Winnipeg, but just last week a couple from Australia stayed with them for dinner and a night.

The next morning, Helen and George Byrne sat down to a breakfast which included French-Canadian sausages (made from Claude’s secret recipe) fried eggs, tomatoes and green peppers, arranged with cheese on a platter of fresh fruit, and good, strong coffee.

The Byrnes were only too happy for a home-cooked meal after eating restaurant food for most of their trip. After another look at the artesian well, posing for a photo, and plucking an apple from the tree behind the house, they were off to the airport, taking a stack of Twin River Farm brochures to show their friends.

– with files from Doris Penner