New resort to offer authentic Frontenac experiences, every time

Mar 30, 2022

New resort to offer authentic Frontenac experiences, every time

A proposal from an Austrian based resort developer, with a Montreal based partner, is turning heads in Frontenac County.

The company ÉcoFrisson Frontenac has quietly purchased some 246 acres of land, partly in South and partly in Central Frontenac. The land is a mix of high and low ground, on the fractured Canadian Shield and it includes access to both Bobs and Crow Lake.

Noemie Bedore was working for the Quebec based outdoor adventure company ÉcoRecreo until forming ÉcoFrisson Frontenac, in 2019, with Austrian based Stefan Koskinen, formerly of the Therme Group, a wellness resort developer.

“Stefan and I met while working on the Ontario Place redevelopment proposal, and we realised that we had a shared vision for a wilderness style resort that could deliver an authentic outdoor experience in harmony with the heritage of the land, and local communities, and the needs of the contemporary family. The result was ÉcoFrisson Frontenac, the first project for our new company.

ÉcoFrisson Frontenac, which is slated to open on April 1, 2025, will include glamping, small cabin, and a rustic larger family, sugar/hunt camp experiences.

“The most transcendent aspect to our business will be the way we will be incorporating modern, renewable, energy-based technology to guarantee a prime experience for our guests, in all four seasons,” said Stefan Koskinen. “We visited Frontenac County, where Noemie has some family roots, in the winter of 2019, for a cross country skiing weekend with our families, and had a great time. The only thing that hindered our enjoyment was a lack of snow on the trail, but the countryside was spectacular and we realised the region was easily accessible from both Toronto and Montreal.”

“It hit us both, at the same time, that if there was a way to work with the environment, but enhance it with eco-friendly technology, we could create the basis for a memorable, peak experience for families, every time,” continued Noemie.

The first idea that they came up with was to use specialised snow making to guarantee perfect ski trails for the entire winter season.

“We were working on that concept when the pandemic hit, and that might have given us too much time to plan,” she added.

That’s when the maple syrup vacation concept, a cornerstone of ÉcoFrisson’s business plan, came about.

“We were here in the springtime, and we decided to bring our families to the Little Cat Centre for the ‘Maple Madness’, but it had been raining for a couple of days and the sap wasn’t running.’ We thought that it would be even more exciting for a family to be able to make real maple syrup as part of their vacation, but the problem is that you can’t schedule the maple season,” she said.

“’But what if we could?’ Stefan said, just for the maple trees if not for everyone else. That’s what started us on a brand-new path.”

Working with local contractors and engineers from the University of Waterloo, ÉcoFrisson has created an Authentic Maple™ Experience, a four-acre patch of land with 200 taps, with options to use buckets or lines. Using the same technology of ground source heat pumps, they are able to inject warm or cold air underground to the roots of the trees and create freezing nights and warm days, ideal sap weather, whenever they wish.

“Families can stay for anywhere from two days to a week, anytime between March 1st and April 15th, and make maple syrup. We provide everything, from a sugar shack with an evaporator and filtration system, options for how to get the syrup from the trees to the evaporator depending on age and fitness level. It will be a totally immersive experience, even bottling the syrup, and customised labeling, is included,” said Stefan.

There is also an Indigenous syrup option available, using technology that was employed in the region for millennia.

“The ‘Indigenous sweetwater package’ is important to me,” said Noemi Bedore, “as it is based on my family roots in this part of the world and includes a land acknowledgment of the Bedford Algonquin reserve, which was located on the very land where the resort is located, in 1844, but was never established.

Aside from controlling the temperature under the maple trees, the only other part of the experience that will differ from the maple syrup that is made by hobbyists, and commercial operators across the region and throughout rural Quebec, is an optional sap concentration system.

“It will cut down on boiling time,” said Noemie Bedore, “it’s kind of like a reverse osmosis filter that syrup producers use, only it brings the sugar level up higher. Children, and adults, find that it takes too long to wait for sap to turn into syrup.”

Other plans for the EcoFrisson Frontenac, that are augmented with “harmonious technology” to use a phrase that Stefan Koskinen is fond of, include fishing, birdwatching, and hunting packages, all with guaranteed success, in different seasons.

“We were considering a fall syrup season, but it did not feel authentic,” said Koskinen, “but we will be taking advantage of the fall colours. We can’t control when that occurs, at least not yet.

For information and packages, go to the EcoFrisson Instagram Page. Ecofrisson.ca is under construction.