The Fortress of Louisbourg () is a tourist attraction as a National Historic Site and the location of a one-quarter partial reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Its two sieges, especially that of 1758, were turning points in the Anglo-French struggle for what today is Canada.
The original settlement was founded in 1713 by settlers from Terre-Neuve, and initially called Havre à l'Anglois. Subsequently, the fishing port grew to become a major commercial port 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, named for Louis XIV of France, was one of the most extensive (and expensive) European fortifications constructed in North America.
The site was supported by two smaller garrisons on Île Royale located at present-day St. Peter's and Englishtown. 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 but had abandoned the site by 1785.
The fortress and town were partially reconstructed, in a project that started in 1961 and continued into the 1970s. The head stonemason for this project was Ron Bovaird. This reconstruction work provided jobs for unemployed coal miners, but relied on expropriating an entire community known as West Louisbourg. Additional restoration was completed in 2018-2020 and again in 2022-2023 after Hurricane Fiona. The earlier of the two projects was intended to protect the site from rising water and to restore parts of the fortress.
The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic site is operated by Parks Canada as a living history museum. The site stands as the largest reconstruction project in North America.
History
French settlement on Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island) can be traced to the early 17th century following settlements in Acadia that were concentrated on Baie Française (now the Bay of Fundy) such as at Port-Royal and other locations in present-day peninsular Nova Scotia. A French settlement at Sainte Anne (now Englishtown) on the central east coast of Île Royale was established in 1629 and named Fort Sainte Anne, lasting until 1641. A fur trading post was established on the site from 1651 to 1659, but Île Royale languished under French rule as attention was focused on the St. Lawrence River/Great Lakes colony of Canada (which then comprised parts of what is now Quebec, Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois), Louisiana (which encompassed the current Mississippi Valley states and part of Texas), and the small agricultural settlements of mainland Acadia.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 gave Britain control of part of Acadia (peninsular Nova Scotia) and Newfoundland; however, France maintained control of its colonies at Île Royale, Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island), Canada and Louisiana, with Île Royale being France's only territory directly on the Atlantic seaboard (which was controlled by Britain from Newfoundland to present-day South Carolina) and it was strategically close to important fishing grounds on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, as well as being well placed for protecting the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In 1713, France set about constructing Port Dauphin and a limited naval support base at the former site of Fort Sainte-Anne; however, the winter icing conditions of the harbour led the French to choose another harbour on the southeastern part of Île Royale. The harbour, being ice-free and well protected, soon became a winter port for French naval forces on the Atlantic seaboard and they named it Havre Louisbourg after King Louis XIV.