Sunday, July 15, 2007

The Fortress

Warning: Picture-heavy posting.

When I woke up Friday morning I noticed there was no TV in my room. Note that I’d been here since three o’clock yesterday afternoon. It was only when I went to turn on the (non-existent) weather forecast that I realized there wasn’t any TV. I had noticed a shelf of mysteries right away, though, and was halfway through one last night. Okay, so I’m a book nerd. This should shock no one.

Went to the Fortress of Louisbourg today. Spent from 9:30 or so to about 2:30 there. Wore myself out. It’s the 18th century there, you pretty much hoof it everywhere. There’s so much there, and they’ve only restored about 25% of the place. I took a gazillion and a half pictures, so I’ll only share a “few” here. The French may have built the place, but the Irish would have been right at home: it was cloudy, it was sunny, it was windy, it was foggy, it was sunny, it was foggy . . . You get the idea. Indiana weather really is not this changeable, no matter what we say.





It's a fortress; of course there are cannons.







The sundial in the engineer's garden. Not that it would be much use, judging from the weather.




All you non-crafters didn’t think you’d escape without textile pictures, did you? The French didn’t have the necessity the other settlers had of creating their own cloth since Louisbourg was a major shipping center and they just bought it. This lady is making lace, which the women of the middle or upper class did mainly as a hobby and to trim their clothes.



As you can see in the picture above, there can be as many as 35 bobbins used to create the lace; this project has a little less than that. It would take about an hour to create an inch of lace.






Fancy dress












The nuns had a school for girls from the middle classes. Lower class kids usually learned their parents’ trades. Girls were trained in religion, a small bit of math, reading, and in genteel arts such as embroidery . . .










and lace making.






Sheep alert! There were actually quite a bit of farm animals and I suspect this guy would have been used for breeding or meat, rather than his wool, given the easy availability of finished cloth.










House in the village.








This gun was longer than I am tall! Actually, the average height of women then was 5’, so I would have fit in perfectly (men were about 5’10”).







Dancing along the harborfront.








What's a fortress without soldiers lazing about?








The famous Frederic Gate.















The King's Bastion.






Eventually the sun came out more or less for good. After a Jacuzzi bath at the inn to revive my poor feet and back, I drove up to the lighthouse.


This is the road to and from the lighthouse. Note that it is not 30 miles per hour, but kilometers per hour (about 18 mph). Even this is ridiculous, given the nature of the road.










Hooray for four wheel drive!











It does exist!












A view from Lighthouse Point.






Finally, a nice relaxing dinner at the Grubstake and back to my room to type this up.












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