Toponymie | Canton de Potton | Place Names

This pond, which is the source of the Ruisseau Singer, is named on the map published by La Réserve naturelle des Montagnes-Vertes.  The area appears on the Municipal maps as well, but without designation.  The body of water, or étang, is surrounded by a large perimeter of wetlands.  The Étang-aux-herbages is a natural site, found in a mountainous zone of the Sutton range.  Natural, in this sense, is intended to mean unexploited and in a natural state. 

According to dictionaries of both Quebec and European French, the word herbage means an area of pastureland used for grazing cattle.  From this, one could then extrapolate that a farm or farmland exists in proximity, which is not the case to my knowledge,  – since there is no road to the area.

The Living Webster defines “herbage” as:  herbs collectively; “herbaceous vegetation; the succulent parts, as leaves and stem, of herbaceous plants, grass and other nonwoody growths.”

Not to cut too fine a point here, but it would seem the latter definition better describes what one would actually find upon visiting Potton's Étang-aux-herbages!