Forest fires force Domaine du Lac Bryson to hit pause on bookings

Forest fires force Domaine du Lac Bryson to hit pause on bookings

With forest fires raging throughout the province and in the upper reaches of the Pontiac territory, local outfitter Domaine du Lac Bryson is closely monitoring the situation, which has had a major impact on their business during one of their busiest months.

Laurel Lebrun, who owns the outfitter with her husband Denis, said that their plans for celebrating 30 years in business haven’t gotten off to a great start. While they were initially inundated with people looking to reschedule trips to other outfitters affected by the fires, by Sunday night they realized that they would need to cancel all reservations until the situation improved. She estimated that they’ve terminated around 30 reservations in the past few days, and would likely need to cancel more next week due to the uncertainty.

Lebrun said that they were quite concerned with a fire at nearby Lac Duval, but SOPFEU crews attended to it and it’s currently listed as under control. While they’ve had fires nearby in previous years, she called this year’s situation unprecedented.

Lebrun told CHIP 101.9 that they had enough food to last their 11 staff about two weeks, though they could supplement that with the bounty available in the lake. They are located about an hour and a half to two hours up chemin du Bois Franc from Hwy. 148, and while their access road wasn’t ever blocked by the fire, the current evacuation order means they wouldn’t be able to return to Lac Bryson if they went to town for supplies.

The full interview with Lebrun (9m10) is available here.