Dawn Airey

By Trevor Greenway

When Dawn Airey opened her Mon Petit Chum bed and breakfast in Wakefield 20 years ago, she didn’t know how to slice a tomato properly. 

Nowadays, she’s a gourmet chef whipping up eggs Benedict, waffles and a “to-die-for” pork and apple burger – and she says she has a roster of locals to thank for her two decades of success. 

“I got so much community support,” Airey says, adding that she knew just one person when she moved to Wakefield, but soon she knew everyone thanks to people like former Kaffe 1870 owner Ron Regimbald and the late Lynn Munro from Tulip Noire, who Airey says “swooped me in.” 

“I got famous for eggs Benedict thanks to Che Chartrand,” she says, referring to the former Chez Eric chef/owner. “He finally taught me how to make hollandaise sauce.”

Airey is sitting at her kitchen table with a mess of newspaper articles strewn about. Most are Low Down articles from the past. She’s flipping through them and reminiscing on two decades of community service. She’s emotional because she just made the decision to sell the business and move on to something less hectic. But she knows just how much she’ll miss hosting both tourists and locals at her Burnside bed and breakfast. 

“Oh, the people for sure,” says Airey, when asked what she will miss the most. 

“I have some couples that come every three months. I have some people who come once a year. I have some that come every three years, but I do remember them all, and I welcome them with open arms.” 

Airey says that at least 15 couples have proposed around her fire pit or at the nearby Wakefield covered bridge, and she always has champagne at the ready when it happens. 

If anyone has ever stayed at her bed and breakfast, they would agree that Airey has always been more than just a proprietor; she’s been called the “village mom” by many, including her guests, as she does everything she can to ensure their stay is as good as it can be. That means booking guests bicycles for a ride; getting them concert tickets for shows at Kaffe 1870 or Motel Chelsea or planning out a Gatineau Park hiking trip. 

“I become their Wakefield mom,” she says, adding that, like a mom, she also worries about her guests. “Are they gonna get home from the wedding? They’ve been gone for seven hours on the hike. Where are they? They should be back from their bike ride right now. Did they like the restaurant I sent them to?”

And it’s not just her guests that she’s made a huge impact on. Many in Wakefield, including the publisher of this newspaper, Nikki Mantell, call her “the village sweetheart.” Parents recall how grateful they have been over the years during Halloween to have a safe, blocked-off loop for trick or treating (and thanks for that mulled wine for us parents!).

She’s volunteered at Canada Day for years, has helped out with Dragonfest, and sat on Wakefield’s now-defunct chamber of commerce and became an ignition for Wakefield’s tourism industry by creating a central website that featured every village business on it in the early 2000s. 

But after two decades of working seven days a week cooking and cleaning, in addition to being a single mother, Airey says she’s tired. She isn’t sure what she’ll do next, but she says she wants to slow things down. 

“I just want to have a job where I can be with people and help them still but with less stress,” she says. “Something where I can sleep in on the weekend.”

Airey says she will be listing the business sometime this summer or fall. She doesn’t yet have a final closing date.