June 9th - Fortress Louisbourg

We spent a big part of the Sunday at Fortress Louisbourg.  The last time Kelly and I were here was in 2008 and it poured rain the entire day. This time we had beautiful, sunny weather in the high sixties. It was a little windy and a lady told us that is good it keeps the black flies away. Black flies are like giant gnats and drive you crazy when you are outside. We bought some special repellent but I haven't been impressed with it so far.

The fortress was in its prime in the early 1700s. It was one of the four largest in North America in the 18 century. The English conquered it and destroyed everything so the French couldn't come back and use it in the future. In the 1960s the Province had thousands of coal miners out of work so they made the rebuilding of the fortress a work project like the Civilian Conservation Corps in the U.S. Coal miners learned stone masonry, carpentry, and other skills. What they have rebuilt is only about 1/5 of its original size. Originally the walls ran for 2.5 miles. Here are a few pictures.

When we arrived the police bikers run we ran across going through Sidney on Saturday was there. Dozens of police bikes, police bikers, patrol cars and ambulances make the annual run. The occasion is remembrance of 9/11. Here is a picture of them on the parking lot.

To commemorate the ride the Fortress soldiers fired two cannons at noon, which we learned they normally don't do anymore. So we had a treat. Here are a couple of pictures.

Those cannons could reach a mile and half away, which really amazed me. They told us that when soldiers weren't on duty they could make extra money building the wall but their superiors usually cheated them out of the pay. (Things haven't changed.) When not on duty the soldiers spent most of their time trying to stay warm. If they got hurt working on the wall they were deported back to France.

Having lace on your clothes was a sign of stature and wealth. Men used more of it than women. The Governor's wife and daughters, and officers' wives and children, kept busy making lace by a method called "bobbin lace".  A pattern (the green strip) is tacked down and wooden bobbins are then lifted across each other to interconnect the thread according to the pattern. It would take about two hours to make one inch. It would drive me nuts. Here is a picture of a simple pattern a lady was working on.

Back at the RV in the afternoon we just relaxed in the sun and did a load of laundry while it was convenient to do so. We learned today that we are ahead of the summer tourist season. Their summer season is from July 1 to September. Monday morning we catch the ferry to Newfoundland.