The Fortress of Louisburg is located on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and was built by France in the early 18th century to help protect the Atlantic fisheries, and to defend the strategic approach to New France via the St. Lawrence River. The fort was huge, and had walls of solid masonry thirty feet high.

Supposedly impregnable, the fort was never manned with enough soldiers to defend it properly, and it fell to English and American forces several times.

Fortress Louisburg is in the process of being completely restored, and is now open to the public. It's archaeological collections, which include several million artifacts, as well as the fort itself, are an invaluable research tool available for study by visiting scholars.

This was an interesting time to view the fort - fog swirled around the streets and throughout the fortress giving it an eerie feeling and making it even more visually appealing than some 4 hours later when the sun peaked out.