Last year, around this time, Jason and I headed to the Quebec City region to toodle around the nearby island of Ile d’Orleans for a story I wrote for National Geographic Traveler (March 2008).

While in the area, we were also able to attend early August’s New France Festival, a five-day extravaganza that turns the city’s already historic downtown core into a true image of the 17th century, with costumed crowds, acoustic music and booths selling authentic food-stuffs.

Yesterday, my story on the event came out in Toronto’s NOW Magazine – giving me a great excuse to post this picture.

I may look more-or-less like a sophisticated lady-in-waiting, but truth-be-told, I’m still indebted to a stock photographer from Vancouver who lent me his camera bag safety pin to hold the whole contraption together.

I love dressing up, but by the time I got back to Chateau Frontenac and stripped off my itchy, bulky and unflattering petticoats, I was pretty thankful to be a woman of modern times (minus, of course, low-rise jeans and “empowering” pole dancing lessons)!