Monday, July 24, 2023
First things first today, we left our parking lot for the past two nights and headed to Louisdale, a few miles down the road. (Non-rvers may just want to skip this paragraph.) Richmond county does a great service for us RVers by providing a free dump and fill station just off the main highway. It was very clean and set up correctly for ease of use. Sure wish every county would provide this service.
From LouisDALE, we drove a couple of hours to LouisBOURG to the Fortress of Louisbourg, National Historic Site. We first stopped at the Welcome Center, paid our entry fee and boarded a bus to take us to the fortress – about 1 mile down the road to an area with little parking. The National Historic Site is operated by Parks Canada as a living history museum. It is the largest reconstruction project in North America. We were greeted at the fortress by people in period costumes and speaking as the people who actually lived in the fortress. Do you know the difference in a Fortress and a Fort? Some of us never really gave it much thought but our first interpreter this morning was intent on us learning something today and that something was the difference. A fort usually means a structure with walls and other defensive measures made to withstand an attack by an enemy. It’s usually built by and for the military. In Alabama, think Fort Morgan built to protect Mobile. A fortress can be much the same but usually means a much larger area like a city built inside a fortified area. The fortress probably has some military personnel on premise but there are usually many civilians as well. The original settlement was founded in 1713 by the French. The small fishing village grew into a major commercial cod fishing port and a strongly defended fortress. The British invaded and took the fortress in 1745 but it was given back to France 3 years later in a land trade. The British took the fortress again in 1758 and this time they demolished the fortress walls to prevent it from ever again becoming a fortified French base. Over the years there were smaller reclamation efforts at the fortress but in 1961 the government of Canada began a $25 million project aimed at reconstructing approximately one-quarter of the original town and fortifications. The project was begun for several reasons but probably the most important was to provide work for the surrounding citizens facing severe unemployment. Most of the buildings are reconstructions of the originals build on the original foundations. We had a great visit at the fortress and learned many more things. There is lots of information online if you are interested.
RVing With a Purpose 