Little Lolly's Small Adventures: Sydney, Nova Scotia. Excursion: Relive History at the Fortress of Louisburg.

Sydney from the Maasdam's forward on-board camera.

Fortress of Louisburg in the distance.

After dinner last night Paul and I went up to the Crows Nest to listen to Karen sing. It was the last evening of her singing contract and we wanted to support her on her last night. Unfortunately one of the songs brought back some memories of my parents (R.I.P.) and had me in tears so I had to leave in a hurry. After a good cry I felt a bit better. Maybe I'm a bit 'hormonal' at the moment. Poor Paul, he didn't quite know what was going on but he was supportive. I believe women can be complex at times - well, I find that I can't understand myself some times!

There was no fog during the night but unfortunately Paul didn't sleep very well . Maybe his brain was wired to the fact that he might be woken up for fog duty?

The Maasdam docked in Sydney without any problems (during the previous cruise the wind was too strong and there were no tug boats to help the ship), and it was a lovely sunny but chilly day on arrival.

After an early lunch I met up with my assigned tour group on the pier. I was glad had had put on a few layers of clothing because the wind chill factor nearly turned my exposed hands blue with cold.

Costumed 'kitchen servant' speaking to us.

After a 40 to 50 minute journey we arrived at the Fortress of Louisburg. According to our guide (Irene), from what I can remember, the fortress was finally raised to the ground so that it wouldn't fall into French hands but it was partly reconstructed during the 1960's and '70's. There is quite a history about the fort which I won't go into but you can read about it for yourself via this link: History.

Firing a musket (the woman had earplugs fortunately!).

The fortress was impressive and a nice place to visit. There are restoration works going on in some places. Today there were only a few buildings open to the public on the site but during the summer the fortress, I believe, will come more to ‘life’ with more buildings being open and more costumed people being around and about.

Military Chapel.

For today's visit Irene took us on a bit of a walking tour after which we visited the Engineer's House. Just under the eaves of the house there were bird nests, possibly House Martins but I stand to be corrected. Anyway, we were greeted by a 'kitchen servant' in period costume who talked about her life and offered us a traditional hot chocolate drink. A block of raw chocolate (to which vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and a bit of sugar had been added) was grated and the powder was mixed with hot water or hot milk. The drink was a bit on the bitter side but I didn't complain - it was lovey and hot, and probably full of goodness too. Well, in the old days it was only the elite that had chocolate, or it was given for medicinal purposes.

After the visit to the Engineer's House we visited the Guardhouse where a guard in period costume talked about her life at the Fortress, living conditions and also gave us a musket firing demonstration.

From there we went to the Military Chapel after which we were given plenty of time to explore the site at our own leisure.

Heading to Charlottetown

All in all our time spent at the fortress was interesting. I was glad though when the bus arrived to take us back to the Maasdam. I was cold from walking around the site!

The ship has set sail for Charlottetown and I must get the cabin ready for a games evening.

PHOTOGRAPHS