A mother of four had to leave her farm after she was twice infected with black-legged ticks, which carry Lyme disease.
Line Bellemare had never seen ticks before contracting Lyme disease in 2018, but her troubles weren’t over as she contracted the infection again the following year. “It was very painful. It starts like a bad flu, then you feel dizzy and tired. And I always had a screwdriver in my head,” she explains.
Antibiotic treatment helped after the first infection, and she returned to work in her field on Bizard Island, where she founded the traditional seed company Terre Promise.
But the farmer, author and speaker has endured painful consequences she says are related to her infections. To overcome the symptoms, she turned to American specialists and today considers herself recovered.
Despite everything, she continues to be afraid.
Target erythema migrans is characteristic of a tick bite. Photo by Line Bellemare
Line Belmare
685 municipalities
This spring, Quebec’s National Institute of Public Health added 174 new municipalities to its list of sectors where Lyme disease is present. This leaves a total of 685 municipalities affected by the disease, mainly in southern Quebec.
“The summer of 2026 is part of a trend observed for several years in Quebec, namely an increase in the number of reported cases of Lyme disease, as well as the continued expansion of black-legged tick populations, the main culprit in disease transmission,” explains Karen Leblanc, CEO of the Quebec Lyme Disease Association.
She clarifies that this progress is facilitated by climate change. “Longer seasons, warmer temperatures and milder winters are helping ticks survive, reproduce and establish in new regions of Quebec.”
Several ticks collected by Veronica Loiseau from Saint-Lazare. The summer of 2026 promises to be very interesting for her. Photo by Véronique Loiseau
Veronique Loiseau
Worst year ever
Some regions have been hit harder recently. “This year is just hell, I have never seen so many ticks,” says Véronique Loiseau from Saint-Lazare in Montérégie.
Although she has seen some of them in her home, fortunately with no consequences, the ticks mainly target her dog Max, a four-year-old Shetland Sheepdog. Although she had so far managed to collect one or two per summer, at the beginning of June she had already counted about twenty.
Veronique Loiseau with dogs. Photo by Véronique Loiseau
Veronique Loiseau
Veronica Loiseau’s dog Max was bitten several times by ticks in the Saint-Lazare region. Photo by Véronique Loiseau
Veronique Loiseau
“There are parks where I no longer walk because of the ticks, and I don’t even go outside for days on end. This leads to other problems. When my dog doesn’t walk less, he barks more, and it bothers the neighbors.”
Although the effects of Lyme disease are less severe in animals, there are vaccines to protect them, but this is not the case in humans.