Fortress of Louisbourg

The Fortress of Louisbourg is a French fortification built between 1713 and 1740 in the town of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, with its walls raised mainly between 1720 and 1740 under the successive direction of the engineers Jean-Francois du Vergery de Verville, Etienne Verrier and Louis Franquet. Two and a half miles of wall, standing between 16 and 36 feet high, enclosed the town behind six bastions and four gates and carried roughly 148 guns oriented toward seaborne attack. The original fortress fell to British and American colonial forces in 1745 and again, permanently, in 1758. What stands today is a one quarter partial reconstruction built by Parks Canada in the 1970s, described as the largest reconstruction project undertaken in North America, later repaired after damage from Hurricane Fiona in 2022. It now operates as the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, a living history museum offering guided tours and period reenactments.