Canada
Mine terraces the size of amphitheatres frame a Québec town facing its asbestos century head-on.
The lookout takes in a stepped crater and water of improbable turquoise. Headframes stand over the town like retired giants.
Thetford's open pits and spoil mountains record a century of asbestos mining that built and scarred the region in the same motion. Mining-heritage museums and viewpoints interpret the industry without flinching from its costs. The turquoise pit lakes make an unsettling, genuinely singular landscape.
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Solo
Museums and lookouts make a focused half-day for an industrial-history traveller.
Friends
Companions can pair the mining story with the region's lakes and back roads.
Fromagerie La Bourgade makes its cheese curds fresh daily, squeak intact, under poutines that do not hold back.
The house even builds a sixteen-pound poutine for tables that bring reinforcements.

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