Sonya's Blog - Day 95 - The Fortress of Louisbourg

Sonya’s Blog - Day 95 - September 25th - The Fortress of Louisbourg

Our ferry was due to dock at 7 AM so I had set my alarm for 6:30 so that we could all be up and dressed for 7 AM. I did not take into account that my clock was still on Newfoundland time so we actually had an hour to get up and get dressed because we gained a 1/2 hour. Wow, was Natasha every impressed with that. We all did not sleep well as it was quite the crossing, the boat moved a lot, the seas were a little rough. Ah, well, that’s the way it goes.

The ferry finally docked and we were one of the front cars, so we tried to get to our truck as quickly as possible since our leaving allowed others to leave. We were one of the first cars off and we were on the highway in no time. We were heading to the Fortress of Louisbourg for the day and then we are driving back to New Glasgow to be re-united with Kizmet! (plus Aunt Theresa and Uncle Fred again). Louisbourg did not open until 9:30, which gave us plenty of time to stop for breakfast and make it out there by opening time. We found a cute little coffee shop, called Wentworth Perk, in Sydney that served up some yummy breakfasts and latte’s. There was only one lady working, there was a long line-up and she managed to get everyone served without too much of a wait. That was pretty impressive. Our coffees and breakfasts were very good and it was a good stop. Natasha had been the one to decide that is where we should go and it was a good choice.

Louisbourg is only about an hour from Sydney and we arrived just after they had opened. There was a really long line-up to get tickets and we were a little disheartened, but then a lady came out and asked if anyone had a Discovery Pass (yearly Parks Canada Pass). We called out that we did and she helped us right away. With our Discovery Pass our admission was free (bonus, that pass has come in super handy), but we would have to pay for any tours that we wanted. We got all checked in and headed down to the bus. You have to take the bus over to the Fortress as it is about a 5 minute ride from where the Parks Canada building is. While we were on the bus we decided which tour we would like to take. They had two tours available, one was a general tour of the grounds and the other was an immersion tour, where you got to meet “people” from the past and they talked about what their life was like in Louisbourg in the 1700’s. We chose the immersion tour as we thought the kids would learn more from that one. We had an hour to explore on our own before our tour started. The Fortress of Louisbourg was a make-work project by the government of Canada in the 60’s when they closed some Sydney Mines and many miner’s were put out of work. They decided to rebuild the Fortress exactly how it stood in the 1700’s and make it a National Park. There are ruins from the original fortress as well, but all of the buildings that you can go in are reproductions. Luckily France kept very detailed records and worked closely with Canada to provide all the information that was needed to recreate the fortress.

The first part of our tour was with a soldier and he described his life and why he chose to go to Louisbourg from France. They recruited on the streets of the cities and offered the ragamuffins and street urchins a chance to have a roof over their head, rations, clothing and a salary if they signed up. Another popular recruiting place was people who were headed for executions or the gallows. Not a difficult choice for some of them! They had tiny rooms with 4 set of bunks (8 beds) per room and 24 men to a room, however one of them was always on shift so only 2 to a bed! They would pool their rations together, because then they could make pots of stew and soup and it allowed the food to go farther. The men rarely got married, because then they had to move out of the barracks and would need to pay for their own lodging. Another reason was because there was about 1 woman for every 4 men and the women tended to prefer the officers and merchants as they made more money. Another reason they didn’t get married was because they would probably have to give up their gambling and drinking and that did not appeal to many. The soldier then went through how to fire a musket and then fired it off for us, it was pretty noisy!

After the soldier we went to the house of an Officer and were greeted by his wife. She explained to us how her day went and what was expected of her, she mostly ran the household and the servants did all the chores. However, she was responsible for the ordering of supplies and the ships only came so often and not at all in the winter. If she wasn’t good at math, they would run out of supplies during the long cold winter. She also explained about the children they had and how confinement was different depending on whether you had a boy (40 days) or girl (80 days). She then demonstrated the craft of creating lace, which is very intricate and time consuming. Plus, if you had poor eyes than it was not something you would be able to do! Here is a picture of me at the table.

Our last visit was to the house of the engineer and we were greeted by the cook and the butler and they served us hot chocolate! It was super yummy and they explained how it was made and what a huge expense it was to be able to afford chocolate. The Engineer could afford it though as he designed the whole town and was quite wealthy. He lived in the huge house with just his son as his wife had gone back to Provence with their daughters as she preferred it there. The cook described her duties and showed us all the rooms of the house. The butler was also a musician and he played us a tune on the harpsichord. Our tour was done after this visit.

We decided it was time for lunch and went to the restaurant. They have made it as authentic as possible. You are seated with other people and you only get one spoon to eat everything you order. We sat with a lovely couple from the Toronto area and had a lovely chat with them about their travels and our travels. Our meal was very good, Blake and I both had the soup followed by fish and had to eat with our spoon. The kids both just had large bowls of soup. You can get on quite well with just one spoon, which is a lesson that could come in handy in the trailer!

After lunch we explored a few more buildings and then the stronghold where the soldiers lived and carried out their duties. It was getting quite late in the day and we still had to drive to New Glasgow so we decided to head out after this. On the way out Blake talked to a Parks Canada guy and it turns out he knew Blake, they had trained together up at Sunrise (on some course). Crazy.

The drive to New Glasgow was a few hours and it went by pretty quickly. We had a big reunion when we got back to Uncle Fred’s and Aunt Theresa’s. Kizmet was so excited she just did circles around all of us in the front yard for about 10 minutes! It was so good to see her again and she had been such a good girl while we were away. She also got a lot more treats than she usually does, so she loved staying there!

Sonya