Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

The possible topics from this week’s photo chosen by Cee: chicken, coffee, cup, black and white, ferris wheel, fake flowers, topiary, round, triangle, treats, red, green, ball, store logos, or come up with your own topic.


I'm going to go with some chicken!


Louisbourg NS

Angkor Ban Cambodia

Somewhere in Oklahoma

Chicken feet in Mazatlan Mexico

Fort Smith AR

Monday Mellow Yellow

       

I'm posting at Monday Mellow Yellow today.


August 2013 - Louisbourg Nova Scotia

Saturday Snapshot

August 2013 - Louisbourg Nova Scotia 

Louisbourg Fortress was a highlight of our recent trip to Nova Scotia. I have used their site for the information below.

You board a bus at the Visitors' Centre for a five minute drive to the Fort. As you disembark you are greeted by a fisherman outside his cottage.

The Fortress of Louisbourg is the largest reconstruction project in North America. The original settlement was founded in 1713 by the French and developed over several decades into a thriving center for fishing and trade. Fortified against the threat of British invasion during the turbulent time of empire-building, Louisbourg was besieged twice before finally being destroyed in the 1760s. The site lay untouched until well into modern times, when archaeologists began to reconstruct the fortress as it was in the 18th century.

  The Dauphin Gate

There were only three land gates and a couple of wharves to give entry to Louisbourg. This one, the principal land entrance, was manned around the clock by an officer and thirty soldiers. Fishermen, wagoneers and children could pass in and out all day long, but each night the sentries ceremoniously locked the gate and raised the bridge.
The gate is carefully designed, from the sluice gate controlling water levels to the musket loopholes staring at you from the walls, to the graceful sentry box called a guerite (3) observing you from high above the ditch. But brute force is a fortress’s stock-in-trade-most of these details were pounded to rubble in two sieges of Louisbourg. Archaeologists recovered fragments of the original sculptured trophies here, and their duplicates were cut in limestone from the same French quarry.
Through the massive doors the path is flanked by guardrooms, soldiers’ on your right, officers’ on your left.

Thanks to their efforts and the work of Parks Canada and the Fortress Louisbourg Association, you can now experience life in Louisbourg during its heyday. There are more than a dozen buildings open to the public including three authentic working 18th century restaurants. During the summer months hundreds of re-enactors or “animators” of all ages, from wealthy merchants to poor soldiers, populate the streets of the restored fortress working, playing, and living life as they would have in 1744.

The Lartigue Property
The first house you approach on the quay was one of the most admired in the town. Its owner, a Gascon named Joseph Lartigue (c1683-1743), came to Louisbourg with the first settlers from Placentia, Newfoundland. He had been a fisher¬man and trader, but here he accepted public office, becoming a member of the Superior Council and serving as town magis¬trate. Business sense, family alliances and official favour raised him to prominence in the town. Lartigue had the original of this house built here in 1734.

Frédéric Gate
Through the ornate arch that dominates your view down the length of Rue Toulouse came most of the people, news and merchandise of the colony. Orders from the king arrived here - the gate’s name honours the royal minister who managed France’s colonies and navy. So important an entrance naturally reflected Bourbon majesty in its proud bulk and careful proportions. Construction of the gate in 1742 completed Louisbourg’s circle of fortifications on the eve of war.
Most large ships anchored offshore. The crews launched boats and then pushed and carried their cargo over the wharf and through the narrow gateway. The sailors who landed here represented a score of ports. On a busy summer’s day you might have heard them speaking French, English, Portuguese, Basque and Breton, joined by the German of the Swiss troops and the Mi’kmaw of the native people. Business houses, inns and taverns made the quay a gathering place for townspeople as well as mariners. Idling or going about your business here, you would have seen public announcements, auctions and even the punishment of criminals.

Looking up the street from the Gate.

Benoist Property

This was another house full of children, for Lieutenant Pierre Benoist (c1695-1763) had seven children in his two marriages. One died young killed with her mother by smallpox. Benoist was hardly rich, but military families had to maintain an air of refinement - in 1743, while Benoist was serving at Port Toulouse down the coast, a charitable bequest was paying for his daughter’s education at the convent school of the Sisters of Notre-Dame.

The bare storehouse walls on the left side of Rue Toulouse are interrupted by a large public well, one of several in the town for those without wells in their yards. Some commentators thought the local water healthy, though the town wells are shallow and surrounded by latrines. Few drank water in any case.

la Plagne Property
Pierre-Paul d’Espiet de la Plagne, who owned the house on the corner in the 1740s, was the son and nephew of garrison officers and both his brothers had served here with him. His kinship ties extended throughout the colonial elite, and he received choice postings around the colony. De la Plagne sometimes used his troops as domestiques in his home, and a young soldier called La Fleur later used the knowledge he had gained working in this house. On a dark night in 1740 he scaled the fence, forced a window and robbed his captain of a few coins. It was not a planned theft - swift discovery and conviction saw the soldier branded and whipped through the streets.

Some photos of the women at work.

Many Louisbourg taverns were tiny; sometimes just a kitchen where the family of a sergeant or master artisan entertained men who had few other places to gather. With its busy quayside location, Grandchamp’s home grew into a larger business that kept two slaves busy, but a 1741 inventory confirms that it was furnished much like any private home. Playing cards, drink, and a stock of clay pipes were adequate to equip a tavern like this one.
You can dine in the style of the common people of Louisbourg in the first of Grandchamp’s buildings. In the smaller tavern you may meet a soldier or fisherman who has stopped to share a song or story over a glass.


This tavern owner told us that Louisbourg had twenty-four taverns and women were more than welcome in them.

The King’s Bastion Barracks
Listen for the bell ringing the hours from the slim tower - the clock below it has only an hour hand. Sense the solidity in the warm stone as you follow the long lines out to either end, where the prevailing symmetry has been broken by a delay -now an endless one - in raising the right end of the roof to match the left end.
The defects of this elegant barracks harassed its builders and residents almost from the start of construction in 1720. Its roof slates were fire resistant but leaky, its mortar and beams and floors prone to crack or rot, its fireplaces drafty and smoking. One governor pleaded for a new barracks, another commandeered the engineer’s house, but the barracks survived as long as the town.

Nova Scotia Ramblings - Day 4-6 Cape Breton Island

August 26, 2013

I posted about our first three days in Nova Scotia at this link.
Other photos can be found at these links.
Shadow Shot Sunday
Song-ography
Scavenger Hunt Sunday
inSPIREd Sunday



We woke to a beautiful day in Antigonish and after our usual breakfast at Tim Horton's we headed for Cape Breton Island.

  One more place on our bucket list checked off.

We start our trek of the Island on the Ceilidh Trail which offers stunning vistas of rugged coastline, bays and inlets, verdant hills and rolling farmlands as it follows the shore of western Cape Breton for 107 km (67 mi.) from the Canso Causeway to the Cabot Trail.

Our first stop was at the Celtic Music Centre in Judique.

The origin of the name Judique is disputed. Many people in Judique believe it is a First Nations (Mi'kmaw) word meaning water. However, the name is also said to mean a river or stream where the water turns swiftly forming eddies, and is French in origin.

Quebec visitors to Judique have apparently said that a “jou-jeu” is a spinning top and used for a game named jou. “Dique,” they said, “ is ‘dike’ and could relate to the dike system in the area.

Another possibility relates to Nicholas Denys, a local fisherman. One of Denys's sea captains, on a return trip to Arichat, was reading Scripture from the Book of Judith. He was passing along the coast of what is now Judique, and was overcome by the rolling hills and greenery of the area. It is said that it was recorded in his log with the name "Judic" which may have eventually became written "Judique."

Our next stop was in the seaside town of Port Hood. 

The next stop was for lunch in the town of Mabou. but first we had to visit the Mother of Sorrows Shrine. My husband is very patient with my church visits while away.

Lunch was at The Red Shoe Pub - check out all the red shoes on their website!

it is owned by the Rankin Sisters a famous Nova Scotia musical family who rescued the pub in 2005. Johnny Gillis of North East Mabou who sold it to the Rankins, came up with the name 'Red Shoe' as a tribute to Cape Breton fiddler Dan R. MacDonald. After doing some research, former owner Rob Willson realized just how much Dan R. had contributed to the music and culture and decided it would be an appropriate name for the pub.

When not performing on their own, the sisters run The Red Shoe pub in Mabou.

We sat on the patio and had an amazing lunch. One of the sisters spoke to us, the second from the left in video above and said that all their food was made from scratch on the premises.

Seafood chowder and mussels, who could ask for anything more!

After enjoying our meal and beverage it was time to move on to our reservation at the Glenora Inn, Canada's only distillery of single malt whiskey.
Check-in was easy, our room was lovely and the grounds were gorgeous. 

The stream that provides the water for the whiskey.

 We took the tour of the distillery. 

We had dinner in their pub, delicious fish and chips, they also have a dining room with the same menu.

August 27, 2013

The next morning we decided to have breakfast in the dining room. Big mistake, it was just awful service. it took over 50 minutes to get our food. The server could not multi-task, simply getting menus and then coffee was an effort. Tables sat with dirty dishes the entire time we were there.
When we did get our lukewarm bacon and eggs there was nothing about them to say that this was not just an average diner.
We checked out and I voiced my annoyance to the desk, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.

It was overcast as we set out. We had reservations for whale watching in Cheticamp (as I thought) at noon. 
The drive through the Cabot Trail is magnificent.  You have to pay a fee to enter the national park.

I am not a big fan of narrow curvy roads!!

We reached Cheticamp and looked for the company/shack to no avail. Finally someone knew the company Fiddling Whales and said they were situated in Pleasant Bay forty minutes away.
We decided we'd make it there for the 2PM sailing.

We made some stops along the way as we had time. 



We got to Pleasant Bay around 1 PM so we sat and read waiting for Stan to come back. He arrived back around 2:15 and he explained that he didn't mind taking us out but they hadn't seen any pilot whales only a couple of Newfie whales so he didn't think it was worth going out. We opted not to. One thing NOT knocked off our bucket list.

By now we were hungry and had seen signs for the Chowder House in Neil Harbour advertised along the highway.

More seafood chowder and mussels!

The Lynwood Inn in Baddeck was our destination for the evening.

We ate on the balcony (we had been seated inside but it was too cold and felt like an old-fashioned funeral parlour with heavy furniture). I had the special whole lobster and mussels with a baked potato and vegetables for $22!!


August 28, 2013
I really wanted to visit Louisbourg but we weren't sure we could fit it in if we wanted to get back to Halifax on Thursday. But when we woke up, my husband had the great idea of us staying another night in Baddeck and doing Louisbourg today. That meant we could head out tomorrow and head directly to Halifax along the Trans Canada highway reducing the driving time.
We called the desk and were able to secure our room for another night.

After another Tim's breakfast at the busiest spot in Baddeck we headed out towards Sydney.

We chatted to a woman from Michigan who said that when she asked about somewhere for breakfast the hotel clerk said "there's Timmie's down the road". She said this was going to be her new expression for going for coffee, going for Timmie's.

It was extremely foggy and damp and we were worried that it would rain.

Once we reached Sydney we decided to get off the highway and go to Glace Bay, not worth it. It meant we ended up on back roads as I wanted to go to Main a Dieu a small town on the map. The name means Hand of God and reminded me of my niece with whom we saw Jersey Boys and we loved that expression used throughout "my hand to God".

We arrived at Louisbourg and boarded to bus to the Fortress.


According to Parks Canada website:
Step back in time to 1744! Experience Louisbourg, a thriving seaport and capital of Île Royale (Cape Breton Island). The Fortress of Louisbourg was one of the busiest harbours in North America and one of France's key centres of trade and military strength in the New World. Today, the site is an exciting and entertaining lesson in history.

This is not an exaggeration, the fortress is a vibrant active town. All the actors are bilingual and do an excellent job portraying the characters that would have lived at the fort. 
Click here for a detailed post on the Fortress. These are just some of the highlights.

Back to Baddeck for an appetizer at the Bell Buoy.

We had dinner again at the Lynwood inn and we both had the mussels and lobster. Bad photo, cell phone.