Fort Louisbourg is another national historic site. The site of a former French colony perched on the east coast of Cape Breton, which was important both for its geographic position (more or less on a direct line from France, making it easier to find) and its fishing, there are ruins of the old fort there along with several replica buildings Parks Canada developed using blueprints and paintings as their guides. There’s about a quarter of the old town rebuilt, complete with costumed characters.
Unfortunately all we had time on Tuesday for was the one-hour guided tour, but I liked it so much (and left the buildings so unexplored) I might go back on my way back from Newfoundland. The fort is close to Sydney and the ferry over to the Rock, so we’ll see.
The problem, of course, is you have to be at the ferry to Newfoundland at least two hours early. And the sailing, which was supposed to get in at 12:30 a.m., got in at about 1:30 a.m. Between disembarkation time and driving a kilometre in some of the worst rain I’ve ever experienced, we got into our hotel room at about 2:15 a.m.
While my taller half gets to fly out of St. John’s, I get to do it all again in terms of the ferry ride. Hurray? The small child who decided to converse with us for a long period of time was entertaining though, especially when he started re-enacting scenes from Magic Mike, a movie about male strippers. Oh, the innocence of youth.
It was pretty entertaining though.
Victoria Paterson 