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Digging up Louisbourg
Scouring the dirt for long-lost trinkets may not sound like a holiday. But if you travel to learn about life in a bygone era,
then visit Cape Breton’s Fortress of Louisbourg and sign up for the public archaeology program. You’ll dig it!
Douglas Hunter with photography by Dan Doucette
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MY SEATMATE ON THE FLIGHT from Toronto to Halifax
flexs open a paperback copy of The Island of Seven Cities, a book
that claims there was a Chinese city on Cape Breton Island in the
early 15th century. I haven’t read it, but it brings to mind numerous
other theories involving early visitors to Nova Scotia, some
linked to fabulous treasures. At Oak Island in Mahone Bay,
everything from a pirate hoard to the Holy Grail is supposedly
interred in its famous Money Pit. Henry Sinclair, the 1st Earl of
Orkney, is said to have come ashore in Sydney in the 14th century.
Some argue that Masons built secret retreats in the province. By
one account, even Samuel de Champlain was in on the local
Knights Templar/Holy Grail sequestration.
I am on the way to the Fortress of Louisbourg National
Historic Site of Canada on Cape Breton, routinely and deservedly
called the crown jewel of Parks Canada, to spend a few days
in its public archaeology program. I’m not expecting to unearth
anything Chinese or Templarese, but once I arrive and start
digging and scraping, I mention this harmonic convergence
of cryptohistory to Rebecca Duggan, who oversees the program
with fellow archaeologist Bruce Fry.
“It’s seems as if people are always trying to hide something
in Nova Scotia,” she observes.
Well, they aren’t trying to hide much in this corner of
Louisbourg. By the looks of the dig, the early occupants just
tossed things over their shoulders and trampled them underfoot.
But as I patiently trowel and brush and bag my way
through broken glass, broken dishes, broken animal bones
and broken clay pipe stems, I do begin to wonder if we haven’t
stumbled on someone’s attempt to hide a Greek wedding in this
humble yard of the fortified French town. The volume of material
in the occupation layer should also be a caution to anyone
advancing a theory of a long-lost city anywhere. You’d better find
the trash to prove it, because humans are incredibly productive
when it comes to waste.
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