(Message sent Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:36:25 -0700)
In contravention of my "only where the bus goes" policy, I really really really wanted to get to a place called Louisbourg. It was only 37km from Sydney, but everyone I talked to agreed - if you don't have a car, your only options are taking a taxi and hitch-hiking. How can it be that there is no public transport to one of Canada's most important historical sites??? Anyway, I was resigned to stumping up the cash for the taxi fare, but it turned out that two people staying at the same B&B as me were day-tripping to the site, and they very kindly agreed to take me. This was all arranged by the wonderfully accommodating couple running the B&B. I stayed overnight in Louisbourg, and then tried to bum another ride back to Sydney the next day, but no dice. In the end I had to get a taxi for the return trip. But all is right with the world, for I got to visit Louisbourg!
Louisbourg was a fortified town settled by the French in around 1700. They chose that spot because of the harbour - a large, deep basin protected by what looked to me like treacherous straits, with choppy seas and lots of small rocky islands. In its heyday it was the busiest port in North America.
You may have heard that the French and the British didn't get along so well back then, and so Louisbourg regularly became a flashpoint, and it was subject to two major sieges and changed hands several times. In the end the British abandoned the site in 1768, blowing it up as they left, for reasons not yet clear to me.
And then - and this is the amazing bit - nothing happened. No new town grew up amidst the ruins. Basically the site just sat there all blowed up and mouldering for 200 years, until the Canadian government decided to start excavations in the 1960s.
The site today, as a way of presenting history to the public, is just amazing. It's hard to imagine them doing a better job. It's divided into three sections: the reconstructed town, the reconstructed fortifications, and the untouched ruins.
In the town section they've rebuilt about four whole town blocks - and not just facades, but full, functioning buildings. (It seems that they had access to the original town plans, and one assumes that the reconstructions were informed by archaeology, but of course it's hard to know how right they got it.) So there is a smithy and a bakery and a general store, and a few cottages with vegetable gardens outside. All of these establishments are staffed by re-enacters, dressed according to the fashions of 1744. For added veracity they drive flocks of sheep through the streets, and many yards have turkeys or goats in them.
Wandering around this town is curiously like the 'town' sections of computer RPGs. Some of you will know exactly what I mean. You go into a shop where a suitably attired person sits all day, going through the same motions over and over, answering the same limited repertoire of questions over and over. Even the set dressing looks the same. You can just see someone going, "That corner looks a bit bare, let's stick... oh I don't know, another barrel over there."
This section also contains all the services you would expect an an attraction - museums, restaurants, bathrooms and so on - but in another nod to maintaining the fiction none of these are signposted on the outside. So to find something you either have to look it up on the map you are given when you enter, or wander into buildings at random until you find what you are looking for.
It's all remarkably well done, although for me, this was the least interesting section of the site.
The fortifications are terrific. They've rebuilt two of the bastions, the section of wall between them, and a length of moat outside them. The walls have little lookout towers, and are well stocked with cannons. Since no modern structures are visible on the landward side of the site, you can wander along the battlements, looking out over the desolate moors, checking for enemies.
They hold regular crowd-pleasers in the bastions, with soldiers marching up and down to the beat of a drum, and firing off cannons and musket volleys.
Only about a quarter of the site has been reconstructed, and you can wander about amidst the ruins of the remainder. The battlements are now just low notched ridges, covered with grass and straggly shrubs. Most of the buildings are only indistinct shapes beneath the grass, although a few low walls are visible, and here-and-there bits of masonry stick up from the sward. Occasional plaques say things like, "This is where the hangman's house and town gallows were," or, "These are the remains of the Queen's Gate, through which British soldiers triumphantly entered the city in 1745." Because I had the ruins to myself, and because they sit on a barren and wind-swept spit of land, it felt really eerie. It also gave me that sense of quiet amazement I always feel to be standing in a place where history happened.
The weather was bad while I was there, but in a good way. When you stood on the battlements you were blasted by a freezing gale, and all day curtains of mist drifted across the site. It helped give a sense of how tough life must have been for the settlers.
In the evening after visiting the fortress I went to a show being put on by local musicians. It was mostly folksy songs, with themes relevant to Cape Bretton life - sea shanties and miners' laments and so forth. The singing was actually quite good, and so was the musicianship, especially the fiddle playing. However they interleaved these with 'humorous' numbers, and these were just embarrassing, with characterisations straight out of the Benny Hill school of making an unfunny arse of yourself.
Artistic considerations aside, it was worth going to the show just to experience the theatre - they've got themselves a Globe! I don't think it's a copy - it's far too small - but it's clearly in the same tradition. It is two-storied and octagonal, and made of dark brown square-cut timbers.
On the ground floor the entrance way occupies one octant, with the stage occupying the opposing one, and spilling out onto the central space. The other six octants are for seating. On the second floor a balcony is surrounded by bar stools, so punters can perch and peer down on proceedings.
It's a magnificent venue, just perfect for a small local theatre company. Later on I found out that the theatre had in fact been built at the fortress by Disney for some movie or other, and then donated to the community and shifted to its current site in modern Louisbourg, some 10km along the coast.
Before leaving the area I walked out along the harbour on the other side from the fortress until I got to the lighthouse directly across the straits from it. The weather was cold but fine-ish, certainly better than any other day in the area, but it was still too hazy for good shots of the fortress, which was a shame, as it would be a magnificent prospect in clear weather. But still it was neat to sit on the steps of a 100 year-old lighthouse, munching on oatcakes and listening to the cannon blasts and musket fire from the fortress being carried to me across the sea.
(The fortress is at N 45 53.598 W 059 59.332 and the lighthouse is at N 45 54.396 W 059 57.503.)
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