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INSIDE LE MOUTON NOIR, a.k.a. The Black Sheep Inn, an improbably cool and resolutely rustic inn and bar on Riverside Drive in the village of Wakefield, Que., pink-cheeked cross-country skiers wrap their icy fingers around warm mugs and bob their heads to a New York–based funk band pounding out an afternoon set. Outside, ice glistens on branches, the Gatineau River is frozen over, and century- old homes and carriage houses sag under snow. Nary a car drives by.

It's impossible not to wonder how and why these musicians ended up in Wakefield, a half-hour drive northwest of the capital and off the radar of the tourist hordes, where everything seems frozen, including time. Did their car break down on the way to Montréal?

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Not likely. Le Mouton Noir regularly attracts an impressive roster of first-class musicians. Its long list of bragging rights includes fiddler Natalie MacMaster and songwriters Danny Michel and Fred Eaglesmith, making the inn one of this tidy, tiny village's many unexpected charms.

Wakefield is a place where the hip hang their berets on the mementoes of a rugged history. A century ago, Wakefield was thick with bushwhacking pioneers, lumberjacks and farm families taking grist to the local mill. The old mill on the La Pêche River, which was built in 1838, then rebuilt in 1911 after a fire, has been transformed again, this time into the serene Wakefield Mill Inn & Spa. Grain silos are bedrooms, the old engine room is a dining room, and the area that once held two turbines has been fitted with a luxurious spa and wine cellar. The frozen millpond is dotted with skaters, creating a panorama of Canadiana that Cornelius Krieghoff could have painted. The nearby MacLaren Cemetery includes the graves of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and renowned photographer Malak Karsh.

Most of Wakefield's action happens on Riverside Drive, the colourful main street dotted with modest but lively bistros. Maison Earle, an 1880s-era carriagemaking shop, today serves wraps, soups and salads to tourists and locals, who gaze across the road at the Gatineau River. After thrashing through rapids and passing under a covered wooden bridge upstream, the river here is a placid bay.

The oft-photographed bridge, a short stroll from the village centre, was destroyed by fire in 1984. But the historically minded people of Wakefield raised most of the $600,000 needed to restore it, and it still rests on the original 1915 pillars. It is now restricted to cyclists and pedestrians. The community was also behind the resurrection of the Hull- Chelsea-Wakefield Steam Train, which is powered by the country's oldest excursion locomotive and operates from spring to fall.

A short walk from Maison Earle leads to the old train station, now the Café Pot au Feu, which serves beef ragout and other flavourful Québecois dishes. Across the street is the Doctors' Home, the village's most outstanding heritage residence. First the home of Dr. Hans Stevenson, then of Dr. Harold Geggie, this 1896 white clapboard house was transformed in 1980 into Les Trois Érables, a bed-and-breakfast inn.

Without the skiers in their colourful jackets, without the restaurateurs and their delicacies, without the musicians from Manhattan or Montréal, Wakefield would still be a charming pit stop on the way to somewhere else. But with these virtues and more, Wakefield is a worthy side trip.

Shelley Page is a writer based in Ottawa.

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