Where is the fortress of louisbourg located

Explore the taste and aromas Century colonial living. Skip to main content We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best possible web experience. By using this website, you consent to the use of all cookies. Visit The Fortress. View Parks Canada Updates. Parks Canada Continue Reading. Continue Reading. Read More Stories. Learn More. Sleep in a Fortress The gates may close, but the experience continues on.

Plan your Stay. From the J. After 8 km, turn left onto NS W. After 3. Continue on Route 22 through the roundabout. Approximate driving time: 35 minutes.

October 12, to May 22, Open Monday to Friday except statutory holidays am to pm. The following is a list of some services that are available in the modern community of Louisbourg. Please note that some of these services are available on a seasonal basis only. For up-to-date information, please visit www. Bus service to and from the Fortress of Louisbourg operates from the Parks Canada visitor centre. This service runs during the peak season , and up to the last Thursday in September.

All other times, access to the site is by personal vehicle via Entrance 2. Two-thirds of our interpretive staff dress in period-style clothing which are faithful reproductions of colonial garb. Our curator of textiles researches patterns, fabrics and existing descriptions as well as preserved originals to create the clothing that brings the class, gender and occupations of the 18th century into tangible reality.

Our staff are proud to discuss the authentic details and individual variations of the costumes they wear. Our buildings are furnished with a wide variety of furniture and daily-life objects. Some are precious originals or antiques from the 18th century; the majority are reproductions.

All of the furnishings are in place to help visitors connect with the past. The ornamental and potager kitchen gardens that you see throughout the Fortress of Louisbourg are replicas of original gardens. The style and types of herbs and vegetables planted reflect gardens of the 18th century. Much of the produce is used in our restaurants and in our cooking programs within the animated houses. If you have a keen interest in gardening, our gardens and animals interpreters are available to speak with you about traditional techniques and points of interest.

They might even put you to work! Guided tours are offered during the peak and shoulder seasons. Tickets can be purchased at De la Plagne House. Private guide services can be arranged by phoning in advance.

If interested, please call Thousands of archival documents pertaining to 18th century Louisbourg still exist in French, British and North American archives. Parks Canada historians have studied these records to guide the rebuilding of the fortifications and homes of Louisbourg. Louisbourg was also known for its fortifications, which took the original French builders twenty-eight years to complete. The engineer behind the project was Jean-Francois du Vergery de Verville.

Verville picked Louisbourg as his location because of its natural barriers. On the western side of the fort, the walls were thirty feet high, and thirty-six feet across, protected by a wide ditch and ramparts.

The city had four gates that lead into the city. The Dauphin gate, which is currently reconstructed, was the busiest, leading to the extensive fishing compounds around the harbour and to the main road leading inland. The Frederick Gate, also reconstructed, was the waterfront entrance.

The Maurepas Gate, facing the narrows, connected the fishing establishments, dwellings and cemeteries on Rocheford Point and was elaborately decorated as it was very visible to arriving ships. The Queen's gate on the sparsely populated seaward side saw little use. Louisbourg was also home to six bastions, two of which are reconstructed. Dauphin bastion, commonly referred to as a 'demi-bastion' for its modification, the King's bastion, Queen's bastion, Princess bastion, Maurepas bastion and the Brouillon bastion.

On the eastern side of the fort, fifteen guns pointed out to the harbor. The wall on this side was only sixteen feet high and six feet across. Disconnected from the main fort, yet still a part of Louisbourg, a small island in the harbor entrance was also fortified.

The walls on the Island Battery were ten feet high, and eight feet thick. Thirty-one twenty-four pound guns were mounted facing the harbor. The island itself was small, with room for only a few small ships to dock there.

The fortress was attacked in two major sieges: once in and the again in The New England attackers succeeded when the fortress capitulated on June 16, A major expedition by the French to recapture the fortress led by Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld de Roye , duc d'Anville the following year was destroyed by storms, disease and British naval attacks before it ever reached the fortress.

In , the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle , which ended the War of the Austrian Succession , restored Louisbourg to France in return for territory gained in the Netherlands and the British trading post at Madras in India. Maurepas , the minister of marine, was determined to have it back. He regarded the fortified harbor as essential to maintaining French dominance in the fisheries of the area. The disgust of the French in this transaction was matched by that of the English colonists.

The New England forces left, taking with them the famous Louisbourg Cross , which had hung in the fortress chapel. This cross was rediscovered in the Harvard University archives only in the later half of the 20th century; it is now on long-term loan to the Louisbourg historic site.

Having given up Louisbourg, Britain in created its own fortified town on Chebucto Bay which they named Halifax. It soon became the largest Royal Navy base on the Atlantic coast and hosted large numbers of British army regulars. The 29th Regiment of Foot was stationed there; they cleared the land for the port and settlement. Britain's North American American colonies were expanding into areas claimed by France by the s, and the efforts of French forces and their Indian allies to seal off the westward passes and approaches through which American colonists could move west soon led to the skirmishes that developed into the French and Indian War in The conflict widened into the larger Seven Years' War by , which involved all of the major European powers.

A large-scale French naval deployment in fended off an attempted assault by the British in However, inadequate naval support the following year allowed a large British combined operation to land for the Siege of Louisbourg which ended after a siege of six weeks on July 26, , with a French surrender.

The fortifications at Louisbourg were systematically destroyed by British engineers in to prevent the town and port from being used in the future by the French, should the peace process return Cape Breton island to France.

The British kept a garrison at Louisbourg until The site of the fortress was designated a National Historic Site in