25: Thanksgiving, Fortress of Louisbourg, Gobble Fest, and Sydney

So who knew Canada's Thanksgiving is the second Tuesday in October, same as Columbus Day in the U.S.?  And it's not a holiday affiliated with anything  Pilgrim; it's just a day to lay back, watch four CFL games, eat turkey - or not - and give thanks.  I can get into that.

From Port-aux-Basques....

And a Louisbourg Fortress gobbler....

Good-bye to Newfoundland....our ferry, The Highlanders, coming into Port-aux-Basques early on the morning of the day we later sailed back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

And here we are in downtown Sydney, Nova Scotia, across the "arm" from North Sydney!  Our hotel room has a wonderful view.

We came here primarily to enjoy the annual Celtic Colors music festival, which takes place in October all over Cape Breton. Allen was surprised to discover it's expensive, not all in one locale, and expensive, so we decided to take advantage of other things to do.

Top priority for me was the Fortress of Louisbourg (again, borrowing from Wikipedia) National Historic Site of Canada and the location of an AMAZING one-quarter partial reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Its two sieges, especially that of 1758, were turning points in the Anglo-French struggle for what today is Canada. 

The original settlement was made in 1713, and initially called Havre à l'Anglois. Subsequently, the fishing port grew to become a major commercial port (according to our guide, the third-busiest in North America, after Boston and Philadelphia) and a strongly defended fortress. The fortifications eventually surrounded the town. The walls were constructed mainly between 1720 and 1740. By the mid-1740s Louisbourg was one of the most extensive (and expensive) European fortifications constructed in North America.

The Fortress of Louisbourg suffered key weaknesses since it was erected on low-lying ground commanded by nearby hills, and its design was directed mainly toward sea-based assaults, leaving the land-facing defences relatively weak. A third weakness was that it was a long way from France or Quebec, from which reinforcements might be sent. It was captured by British colonists in 1745, and was a major bargaining chip in the negotiations leading to the 1748 treaty ending the War of the Austrian Succession. It was returned to the French in exchange for border towns in what is today Belgium. It was captured again in 1758 by British forces in the Seven Years' War, after which its fortifications were systematically destroyed by British engineers. The British continued to have a garrison at Louisbourg until 1768.

The fortress and town were partially reconstructed in the 1960s and 1970s, using some of the original stonework, which provided jobs for unemployed coal miners.  Much of the original building materials were shipped offsite, to be used to build other facilities in Halifax and Boston, for instance.

Again here, as in all other Canadian National Historic Sites, the majority of exhibit components are hands-on.

Louisbourg's punk chicks

Sheep!!!!

This guy just cracked me up.

It was a fortress, after all.

Allen enjoying his conversations with the re-enactors, who are TOTALLY knowledgeable in all things Louisbourg.  Nobody doesn't know the answers to any of your questions.

I just liked this juxtaposition.

And then we learned about Gobble Fest, the annual Thanksgiving weekend series of indie musicians playing around Sydney. We enjoyed Heartwood Slacks, who were later to play elsewhere during Celtic Color, and Breagh MacKinnon, a stunning singer and keyboardist.  We also endured a few of their contemporaies.

Cruise ships that dock in Sydney are treated to the World's Largest Fiddle.