Bishop’s University

Bishop’s University, founded in 1843, is a small English-speaking institution located in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. It follows the liberal education model and serves a student population of just under 3000, primarily at the undergraduate level.

The 550 acre campus is nestled in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, at the confluence of the St. Francis river and its tributary, the Massawippi, in the Appalachian Highlands of southern Quebec’s Eastern Townships, with the Green Mountains extending to the west and the prolongation of the White Mountains to the east. The university is located on traditional Abenaki territory. Because the campus is built close to two rivers, there are marshy and wetland ecosystems around campus, including the Peter Curry Marsh. 

The region has been carved by numerous glaciations over the last 2 million years. The glaciers have left a lasting imprint in today's geomorphology. The retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, left behind moraines, glacial till, and outwash plains whose traces can be seen in the gently undulating topography and the mixed sediment types. The melting of the ice helped form the river network as well as the lacustrine and clay loam soil type that we find here today. 

This loam soil supports many types of plant ecosystems from farmland to native forests. The forest here is mixed (deciduous and coniferous), which is why the fall foliage is particularly vibrant.