A pre-destruction map of the now 300-year-old Fortress of Louisbourg
The rise and fall of one of France’s last strongholds in Canada
WWHEN LOUISBOURG’S CORNERSTONE was laid in the King’s Bastion 300 years ago on May 29, 1720, signifying the official start of the fortified town’s 25-year construction, the French were hoping to secure their last remaining territory in Canada. The plan for Louisbourg was promised impenetrability — its fortifications would be 11 metres thick and nine metres tall with emplacements for 148 cannons (though not all would be installed), and it would be surrounded by water on three sides, making British attacks seemingly impossible.
Though it cost the French treasury a total of 20 million livres (equivalent to about 230 million Canadian dollars today) to build, Louisbourg’s location on a foggy, isolated corner of Île-royale (Cape Breton Island) at the southern entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence was strategic — France could continue its profitable cod fishery off the nearby Grand Banks while guarding the entrance to New France, which stretched from Labrador southwest along the St. Lawrence River and into parts of modern-day United States.
And for a few decades, Louisbourg thrived. The town became one of North America’s busiest ports, seeing more than 150 ships dock each year from Quebec, France, the West Indies and New England. By 1740, its population had grown exponentially from more than 650 permanent residents to nearly 2,000. The settlement itself expanded to 24 hectares, and by 1745, its fortifications were finally complete — just in time for Britain’s first siege on May 11, part of the wider War of the Austrian Succession.
Unfortunately, Louisbourg’s fortifications didn’t hold as well as the French had hoped, and a force of New Englanders captured the town in just 46 days. The British held the settlement for three years before it was restored to France by the Treaty of Aix-lachapelle. In 1758, during the Seven Years War, Louisbourg was attacked and captured by the British forces again, this time by 13,100 troops, 150 ships and their 14,000 crew members. By 1760, Louisbourg’s fortifications had been flattened and the settlement nearly demolished, signalling the impending end of France’s colonies in Canada.
Maps like this one, which depicts the fortress as it was in 1758 prior to its destruction, are some of the only records of Louisbourg’s former glory and proved invaluable to Parks Canada when it began the meticulous process of reconstructing the town in 1961.
Today, the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site faces a new threat: sea level rise. Since its cornerstone was laid three centuries ago, the Atlantic has risen by about a metre, and it’s expected to rise another metre by 2100. While a $9.2-million project is already underway to protect the settlement from flooding, it remains to be seen whether Louisbourg can survive its latest foe: climate change.