Through a Curtain to France

These French-speaking maids gather around a window to chat between chores in Louisbourg, NS.

Louisbourg likely is unknown to most of you. It now is a quaint little fishing village on the outer edge of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Back in its day - that would be 1713 to 1758 - it was a money-making machine for those who lived here. They mostly were French, Spanish, Portuguese fishermen. And they relentlessly fished the cod: 30 million pounds of it every year.

This was the capital of the French colony of Ile Royale back then. It was the most eastern part of New France and included Ile Royale (now Cape Breton Island, Ile St.-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and the Magalene Islands. Today, France can lay claim only to the St. Magdalene Islands, just south of Newfoundland.

England liked the cod just as much as France. And even though she was battling the Scots back in 1745, she was a powerful nation that could battle on two fronts (do you begin to see the Iraq-Afghanistan-U.S. linkage?) back then.

She sent a flotilla up to the enormous fortress that had hundreds of cannon, all facing the sea. But the English slid their fleet around behind Louisbourg and came at the fort through the back door. No cannon back there because the French thought no one would dream of attacking from overland.

The English sent all the French home with honor the first time. Then they agreed to hand the fortress back after a few years. The French learned nothing from the experience, though, and set about making more and more money from the cod fishing again.

And the English came back and did the same thing again. Through the back door again. This time they send the French packing without honor and they took apart much of the fort, using the wood, the doors, the windows, the slate roofs for their own buildings down in Massachusetts.

Now the cod is no more. So the fortress at Louisbourg essentially disappeared.

We came to the fortress and our minds boggled at the size of this place. This is the largest national historic site to be reconstructed in North America.

The work began in the early 1960s when the coal ran out in Sydney, to the north. The government stimulus plan retrained the out-of-work miners as carpenters, stone masons, and other craftsmen. Then they set about restoring this site. They have excavated about a fifth of the old fortress - but the rebuilding job is impressive. They spent $25 million over 25 years. The miners got work and we got a treasure-trove of history.

Re-enactors, dressed as French soldiers, are everywhere and will gladly share their experiences with you.

Jo and I settled in for a discussion with one on the ramparts. She told us about her lot in life. (Of course, there were no female soldiers back then!) She said she had been living in France, without a job so this opportunity seemed like coming to the promised land. She signed on for six years, was given a pay of 9 livres per month. But she soon discovered that 7.5 livres were deducted from her pay for her quarters and food. This leaves just enough for a bottle of bad red wine each month.

She said she works 24 hours on and 48 hours off. This allows her to work for the fishermen in her off hours. But the officer who arranged the extra work keeps most of the money she makes because she is illiterate and doesn't really know how much she makes. At the end of her six years, she needed to re-enlist for another six years to pay off her debts. Because people generally lived to be about 35, they usually could only manage about two six-year deals before they died.

Another man, a fisherman, explained how he doesn't think about doing better in life. "I only think about surviving," he said. He says he was born to be a fisherman and he has no aspirations to anything other than that. Now I was beginning to understand India's caste system. You don't fight being an untouchable for that is what you know you are!

The merchants in Louisbourg made a fortune. They traded in everything - from silk to cocoa, to shoes, to spoons, to cloth. The little people didn't do so well, of course.

I love this re-enacting business. It allows you to step through a curtain in time and see the world through a different lens.

The previous night we attended a concert in Louisbourg Playhouse which was fairly close to being a ceilidh- that Scottish speciality in which people sing, play and dance their jigs while a party atmosphere prevails. This event had some woefully lame comedy skits which proved once again how hard it is to write funny material. They should have stuck with the singing and playing and dancing. That was wonderful. One girl, named Erin, had a quirky smile and was an expert at playing the box. That's right. She sat on a wooden box that had a microphone inside it. She made that box talk and reverberate in ways you would not believe.

One of the perks of the concert was intermission where tea and oatcakes were served. Mmmmmm!