We are in New Brunswick, almost on the border with Nova Scotia, visiting Fort Beauséjour. Its an amazing structure and standing on it, going around it and running down it’s steep slopes has been delighting the four kids and three adults in our party all afternoon. It’s a wonder of engineering, so lets look at how it was made and what happened here…

Fort Beauséjour was built in  1751 in several stages. The first Fort was a simple five sided palisade of wood with bastions at each corner. At it’s widest point the fort measured about 79m (260 feet). The insides of the bastion walls were packed with earth to support gun platforms.

In 1752 the fort was strengthened against rumored British attack and transformed into a more substantial earthwork structure. The Acadian inhabitants in Chignecto had built dykes and reclaimed marshlands for eighty years before the fort was built…