Fort St. Louis project attracting attention
Many people turned out to the Barrington Municipal Administrative Centre on May 19 when Dr. Katie Cottreau-Robins, curator of archaeology for the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, presented recent findings and future plans for the archaeology research project at Fort St. Louis in Port La Tour.
Hosted by the Shelburne Museums by the Sea Community Engagement Council, the afternoon session also included a display of artifacts unearthed in Port La Tour, the gathering of information on other local sites of archaeological interest, and the opportunity to sign up to participate in a public dig at the site this summer.
Fort St. Louis was designated a national historic site by the Historic Sites and Monument Board of Canada in 1931. Cottreau-Robins first became involved in the exploration of Fort St. Louis in 2010 when contacted by one of the two landowners who was thinking about developing his property, knew it was an archaeology site and wanted to know where he could build a structure without damaging the site, said CottreauRobins.
There was a second goal too, she said.
Cottreau-Robins said they were aware of the local oral tradition regarding the proper location of Fort St. Louis, and that in the 1930s there was a very heated debate about the location of Fort St. Louis, with noted historian Father Clarence d’Entremont “sure it was in Villagedale and D.C. Harvey, the provincial archivist at the time, adamant it was in Port LaTour…. so, we had two goals; try and confirm if Port LaTour was Fort St. Louis and to help Mr. Nickerson (the landowner),” she said.
In 2010 and 2011 the Fort St. Louis property was investigated with strategically-placed 40-cmby-4-cm test fields excavated.
“We were trying to determine what kind of site, what period in time it represented and its historical significance,” said CottreauRobins.
“Everywhere we put a test in on the site resulted in early 17th century French or evidence of structures or evidence of the 1641 burning,” she said, causing them to conclude there was nowhere on the property that they could tell the landowner he could build a home and if he wanted to pursue the project he would have to engage an archaeological team.
“This was a significant site that hasn’t been explored archaeology in depth,” said Cottreau-Robins. “It was after that the story of Fort St. Louis and the archaeological potential began to generate excitement at my workplace and with my colleagues.
“As we reviewed our findings and discussed possibilities some specific thoughts came to the forum. Number one, in archaeology in Nova Scotia, long-term investigation of an early 17th century French post had not been undertaken especially employing the modern investigative tools we have today, so we saw an opportunity here to address a gap in our knowledge and to create some understanding for this very early period of French and Mi’kmaq engagement,” said Cottreau Robins. “Secondly, we decided we wanted to approach this longterm research project differently. We wanted to shift the standard model for investigation not as a French fort where the Mi’kmaq came to trade but as a Mi’kmaq cultural landscape where the French set up a post for a period of time.”
Over the next few years research Kevin Robins (left), an archaeologist curator of military history at the Army Museum at Citadel Hill, talks about the artifacts unearthed at Fort St. Louis last year that were on display at the Fort St. Louis presentation on May 19 in Barrington. Kendrick Shand has a closer look at a broken shard found last year at the Fort St. Louis site in Port La Tour. with “many layers” was conducted, including studying early local documents, historic maps and records of the Cape Sable region, hiring students to dig through the archives, talking with local people and recording oral tradition, and conducting a geophysics analysis “to try and understand and see if we could see actual structures of features before we put a trawl in the ground,” said Cottreau-Robins. “It’s the local people here who have all the most important information for this place.
Continued, archaeology, D2