New life for an old story
Military helps breathe new life into history of fortress
To Rebecca Dunham, the piles of rocks, overgrown with moss, along a recently cleared path tell the story of British soldiers getting ready to invade the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1758.
To many others the history in that pile of rocks would be lost. Now, thanks to work done by the Canadian Army’s 4 Engineer Support Regiment, more area along the path has been cleared and Dunham can see roads, buildings and life for those soldiers.
“It’s very exciting to find them, especially in the woods because you don’t see it until you are pretty much on top of it or you fall in it,” said Dunham, an archeologist with the Fortress of Louisbourg, Parks Canada.
The troop, stationed in Gagetown, N.B., was taking part in exercise NIHILO SAPPER. The clearing and refurbishing of the siege corridor and besiegers’ camp, from Nov. 1–20, was one of eight NIHILO SAPPER exercises.
“4 Engineer Support Regiment actually creates the camps of today’s army. For us, we are kind of walking on the camps of the builders of yesterday so that was a really neat connection for a lot of the troop to make,” said Lieut. Nicole Wight, 52 troop commander 4 Engineer Support Regiment.
Roughly 2.2 k.m. long, the trail and structures represent the Grand Encampment which was home for 13,000 people for about a year leading up to the 1758 invasion.
The military troop walked in extended lines across the forest to help Dunham and other Parks Canada employees locate sites and structures over the rugged terrain.
“When you see these things, you have to think of thousands and thousands of people,” explained Dunham.
“It was the soldiers but there were about 40 or 50 women here too. The camp followers, the settlers who supplied the food stocks, bakery and spruce beer. This was sort of a … selfsustaining, mobile city on it’s own and it was quite expansive.”
Hundreds of structures are in the area, some still hidden by young trees, waiting to be uncovered in 20 years time.
Since Nov. 1, they have located stone footer bases of officers’ tents, areas where tents for enlisted soldiers or kitchens may have been and one 18th century wine bottle.
“What really amazes me is just the scale of the buildings that they did, in such a short period of time, to conduct the siege on Louisbourg,” said Wight.
“Just creating these stone structures for all of the tents, creating them as warehouses, all to attack one strong point is a huge amount of work and a huge investment.”
For Dunham, having the military there helped her really understand what it would have been like at the regiment camp back in 1758.
“The presence of the troops … really brought it back to life, it brought some activity back here and made it much more read- able, in an archeological sense,” said Dunham, who praised the troop for its energy, commitment and positivity.
“It’s nice when the military are here because they can see these things and understand them.”
The exercise also gave the troupe a chance to practise what they would do if deployed overseas — getting a camp ready for Canadian soldiers, for example.