Embrasures at Lartigue

Louisbourg was an ocean port, and the vigour of its sea trades brought this broad expanse to life every summer.

To complete the picture before you, try filling the harbour with a forest of masts and a fleet of boats and barges. Scores of sailing ships found shelter here after crossing the stormy North Atlantic, or they sailed out to hazard Caribbean hurricanes and Saint Lawrence ice flows. Most of the cargoes they brought and took away crossed this quay. Overturned boats, piles of lumber, fat cables and massive anchors piled up along the wall as sailors and teamsters struggled with heaps and bales of merchandise.

A place of trade, the quay could not shirk a military role. The harbour wall is pierced for cannon at either end, and the quay was battered by enemy fire in both sieges.