Check one off the bucket list.

Hi,

Over the long weekend, the family and I managed a road trip up to Cape Breton, and I had the chance to check something off my bucket list; I finally got to see the partially restored Fortress Louisbourg. While active Louisbourg was the largest fortification in North America, one of the strongest manifestations of French power on the continent, and the continental base for the French fleet after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.  It controlled access to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, securing the northern flank of French territory, and secured French access to the Grand Banks fishery.

It was taken twice, both times due to the failure of a relief force to arrive after a multi-week siege, once by New England provincial troops supported by the British Navy (in 1745), and the second time by British Royal forces in 1758.  The latter was the first step in the conquest of New France culminating in 1759.  Louisbourg is a critical element of the birth of the modern world; the trading of the Fortress back after '45 was a key step in the formation of a separate political identity in the British colonies, and it's fall in '58 secured the British path to domination of the continent, the consequent growing tension between Britain and it's American colonies, the creation of both the United States and Canada, and everything else that flows from it.  Much of the world we know begins there.

1751 Map.  Restored portion is the NW corner.

With the kids, the trip up is about six hours, so we stayed a couple nights, and spent all of Sunday at the Fortress. The restored site is several kilometers from where you park, so they run a shuttle bus; we were on the first bus in, and the last out ;)

Parking lot is a short bus ride away.  This is the view on the approach.

About a quarter of the Fortress has been restored so far, but that includes some small outlying settlements, including a collection of fishermen's huts, boats, and supplies.

Fishing village on the outskirts.

Interior, Fisherman on left.  Asked if Puddin' could fix his shirt.

Main access to the Fortress is via the Dauphin gate, and the view as you walk in is spectacular.

Approaching the Dauphin gate.

I got a picture of the guard post, but at this point was grinning so hugely my head was about to fall off, and forgot to take some of the interior.  Behind the small gate is a drawbridge, and then the main gate, which is overlooked by the Dauphin Bastion.

Exterior guard post, Dauphin gate.  Companie Franche de la Marine guard.  Cub recognized him as one of the guys I've painted.

Two of the original Bastions have been restored, the Dauphin, and the King's.

Top of Dauphin Bastion, bay side.

Firing a gun at the Dauphin Bastion.

Dauphin Bastion, harbour side.

Just inside the Dauphin Bastion, there's a sally port tucked away - I think most of the crowd missed it.

Sally port tunnel, just inside the Dauphin Bastion.

View of the King's Bastion from the sally port.

Once inside the walls, you start to get a feel for the scope of the place.

Part of the restored town, View from one of the crossroads down to the Frederick gate (i.e., the main quay).

Louisbourg was a fairly significant settlement, as well as a fortification, and building interiors have also been restored.  They've done a fantastic job with this, showing not only residences, but manfacturing / storage / mercantile buildings as well.  Period trades and crafts are actively pursued on site - we had an interesting conversation with both the boat builders and a woman making lace.

Boatbuilders' workshop.  This is an active project; we were talking with the builders.

Lace making; as with the boat, period crafts / trades are actively pursued.

They've also made a real effort to engage the Mi'kmaq tradition, albeit primarily back at the Visitors' Centre.  The alliance with the Mi'kmaq was key to French control of the region.

Gorgeous bead-work.

While there's nothing on the scale of farming, most of the residences have mixed gardens out back, and there's smaller livestock all over the place.  Puddin' was much taken with the geese, and vice versa.

One of the house gardens.

"Fancy" kitchen, the royal engineer's house.  The Friar serving as cook was an interesting guy.

There's also a few places where they've set up displays of household goods, reconstructed from wills and other descriptions of estate.

Series of household good displays.

Marie Rose's goods.

If you go in the peak season, there's a fairly extensive staff in period dress, who both wander about as mobile "historical interpreters", and who do scheduled events throughout the day.  One of the latter was a military demo, with a fife and drum performance, musket drill, and a cannon firing.

Cannon ceremony, King's Bastion.

Administrative building for the Fortress, King's Bastion.

Readying the cannon.

I had some interesting conversations with the interpreters, including one dressed as Captain Vauquelin, who ran the British blockade to get news to France of the Fortresses imminent fate.  He gave me a couple of readings tips that are panning out well ;)

Vauquelin, naval Captain who ran the British blockade.

Another guy was dressed as one of the militia who raided Canso, from Louisbourg, in 1744.  He's carrying a captured Brown Bess (i.e., English) musket, as well as a scalping knife.  While they don't really play up issues like scalp bounties or slavery, both the exhibits and the interpreters are frank about the existence and prevalence of such practices.  Cub was a little startled to discover that kids were a favourite target for scalpers, as they brought in the same bounty with less risk.

Militia.  Note the Brown Bess, captured at Canso.

There's a visible Compagnie Franche de la Marine presence in town.

Marine officer.  Invited us to a dance.

Other daily spectacles include the marching of a criminal to the post for public humiliation and summary judgement.  The drums and cries attracted quite a crowd, including a pack of kids, most of whom enthusiastically called for the more heinous sentencing options.  Nothing like a good mob to bring people together ;)

Marching a thief to the punishment post.

I had a fantastic time.  Louisbourg is pretty much the best restored example of my favorite period of history, and I've wanted to go for more than a decade.  We spent the whole day on site, and while we hit pretty much every building (including the Inn, for a period lunch, I recommend the fish soup), there wasn't one spot in which I couldn't have spent more time; there's also a few other daily events that we missed due to overlap, including one on a soldier's life, and one for kids.

If we're still around next summer, we're definitely going back, and I'd strongly recommend a trip to anyone with an interest in the period.  The Fortress, and the process of restoration, are frankly a national treasure, and while Cape Breton is a little out of the way, it's very much worth the trip.

Needless to say, this has whet my appetite for painting up more of my Acadian project, and I've already dug out and begun sorting through the next batch of figures for painting.

FMB

Catching up

Hi,

Regular readers will have noted that the usual progress of the blog has gone rather to pot of late.  A number of factors have contributed, from a rather pleasant trip out East to see the Cub, to the far less pleasant, successive, bouts with some kind of malignant grot.  The latter has left me with little motivation for anything in the evenings but sitting around, getting caught up on Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy.

That said, life continues, and I've got at least a few things on which I can report.  First up are a couple of completed Blood Bowl figures for my growing human team.  Not much to show for going on three weeks, but better than nothing.







I'm actually cautiously pleased with these, as they're conversions from the stock lineman figure.  Lacking the number of Blitzers I'd need for a full team, marke was kind enough to donate some spare humans he had kicking around, and I greenstuffed them into Blitzerly glory.





As I've squeaked my way into the local league playoffs, these guys should be hitting the table soon.  With a bit of a push, I'm hoping to finish the team in the next month or so; I'd definitely like them in the "completed column for the year.

I also managed a stop at the Halifax Citadel when visiting the Cub.  The first time we went, in the spring, a fair bit of the fortress was closed off to the public.  This time most of the fortress was open, and a number of staff were present in period costume.  We managed to catch the firing of the noon cannon, as well as a musket demonstration.  Cub was intrigued by the school-room built into the fort for the benefit of the soldiers, and we were able to get into both the interior of the walls (accessing some of the deeper gun emplacements), and the moat that surrounds the fortress.





Another bonus was that the small museum based at the fort was open.  It's got a decent range of military gear spanning from the mid-1700s through Afghanistan.








I was frankly flabbergasted when I turned a corner in the museum  and discovered this:

Yeah, that would be Wolfe's cloak.  You know, the one he wore on the 1759 campaign that determined the future of North America.

The one he died in.

So I'm standing there, and I can actually imagine the man huddling up in it against a wet breeze off the St. Lawrence.  I tried to give the Cub a sense of who he was, and what being that close to something that was there, at a pivotal moment in history, meant to me.  He's 7, so much of it went over his head, but I think he caught a bit of my mood.

In completely unrelated news, Reaper's announced their second Bones Kickstarter.  So far, I'm feeling iffy on this one.  While the first offered more minis than I'm likely to ever paint at a not-un-supportable cost, the second offers quite a bit less (at least so far).  They're being cagier about expanding the base package, and instead are offering expanding add-ons; so the $100 pledge grows, but more slowly, but if you chip in another $50, you get an additional set of models which will expands as the pledge count does.  They're also staggering shipping (the current buy-in ships Dec. 2014!), and they're charging actual shipping to Canada (plus presumably customs duties).  The upshot is that to get about the same amount of figs as last time, I'm going to be dropping about twice as much money.  Given that I've yet to actually paint any from the first batch, I might have to sit this one out.  If they post up any of their mind-flayers, I might dip a toe in, but that's about it.

I'm hoping I've shaken the last of the grot, and things start getting back to normal around here.  We've got some newer guys who've contacted the club about playing Bolt Action, which is good news, and I've been itching to get some work done on my Impetus and Musket and Tomahawk forces.  Unless work / life goes more haywire than usual, things at the blog should be settling into more of a routine.  Until then, take care.

FMB

Land's End. Almost.

Hi,

Had a bit of paintus interruptus this last week, as I was off to the east coast to visit the Cub.  In between other activities (monster trucks, FYI, are LOUD!), I managed to sneak in a visit to the Maritime Museum, one of the historical highlights in Halifax.  We've been there before, but it's been a year or so, and the Cub's a little older now, so I thought we'd pop in and see what was new.  As I think I've said before, although small, I think it's something of a gem, and makes for a nice (cool, air-conditioned) finale to a walk along the harbour on a summer's day.



A highlight of this trip was the still in-production diorama of the Halifax harbour as it appeared in 1813.  It's in 1:300 scale, which is close enough to 6mm to not matter, and so far, looks damn good.



I've been feverishly plotting how I can sneak in some 6mm 1812 figs without anyone noticing ;)



The ships, especially, are just gorgeous.  I'd love to have met the people building them, but sadly, the only folks around were some helpful, but not terribly informed staff (at least, from a hobbyist's perspective), and a bunch of teenagers trying to engage the museum's parrot in scatelogical dialogue.



This is one of those projects I always admire; I can't imagine how many hours went into it, and the capacity for focus it represents is astonishing.





Whoever is doing the diorama has made a real effort to illustrate the nature of the "living" harbour, for instance, with a ship being careened at the docks.





I think it's important to remember that Halifax has played a critical role in world events.  While there are certainly busier ports in the world, strategically, Halifax has been one of the most important in the last three centuries, and a staging area for more than a few invasion fleets.

In addition to the diorama, the museum offered its usual charms.  Info on sailing rigs:



Recovered material from shipwrecks, including the frigate Tribune, wrecked in 1797:



And some rather nifty displays on the post-Conquest French diaspora, and the marine excavation of Louisburg.





There's lots of other stuff as well, including some displays on Halifax's role in the World Wars, the recovery of Titanic survivors, etc.  It's not something you'd necessarily hear about if passing through, but I can't recommend it enough.  There's not a lot of "hands on" for active kids, but if they're curious, they'll like it.  Cub seems to like going, and finds something new he likes each time.

FMB