Louisbourg - Peggy's Cove

Louisbourg - Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

From Newfoundland to Nova Scotia we had a smooth ride over on the ferry (although it was a couple of hours late departing) but we made it directly to Louisbourg, only about 30 miles from the ferry landing at North Sydney. Louisbourg is a reconstructed historical site, prompted by the necessity of retraining 1000's of coal miners who were out of work when the coal mines played out in the 1960's. They did a fantastic job of meticuously duplicating the construction, using old plans and historical records. Louisbourg was originally settled by the French where they built a Fort and colonized a township in the early 1700's. During the many wars between England and France, it was captured twice by the British and eventually handed to them through a treaty around 1756. They abandoned it, the township was quickly scavenged, until being restored. You'd think it'd be a big tourist trap, but they avoid most of that with the history and pride of keeping it an historical site.

One of the accurately reproduced streets in Louisbourg. In this world (no plumbing), waste just went down the center of the street to the bay. We really got a "feel" for life in the early 1700's. Life was tough, but better than France for many of the new settlers who were trying for a better life.

This was the King's Bastion, where the Governor lived and where the troops stayed and worked. The idea here was the town would be protected by the troops, the town was inside the Fort. When the British attacked, they came by land (not sea) and easily defeated the French.

View of another part of Louisbourg. We will need to update ourselves on all the British/French history during this time period.

This is the lighthouse at Peggy's Cove. It's a beautiful place, but over-run with ants (tourists).

And this is the "cove" at Peggy's Cove. We also visited a very nice memorial on the Swiss Air flight that went down in the late 1990's just off the coast.

So we found another nice cove. This is a little fishing village by the name of Prospect. We climbed on the rocks outside the town and had lunch. No tourists here - just us, the fishermen, and the fish.

This is the waterfront of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. A beautiful town, very quaint. We did a little hike around here also, had another great fish luncheon. We just missed Hurricane Ophelia as it went south of the Nova Scotian coastline.

Every town has serveral notable churches. This was one of the more noticeable ones from our trip.

Another quaint bay community in Nova Scotia. This is Lunenburg and is more touristy than the other places. It's an old English settlement with many 200+ year old homes. Very British. While in this area, we also visited Halifax (the capital of the province), toured the Atlantic Maritime History Museum, walked the harbor, and had a fantastic meal one night at a place called The Five Fishermen - we highly recommend the food there!

So we finally leave Canada after almost two months. We loved it all, especially the Newfoundland experience. Now we look forward to reconnecting to the U.S. lifestyle, it certainly is going to be different.