![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2018\/08\/38282996_10156588873242938_7942329424425254912_n.jpg\")
<\/a>Nearly a week ago, we left Bloomington on my quest to add one more experience to my understanding of the French and Indian War.\u00a0 Having seen where it started (Fort Necessity, thanks to George Washington), Montreal and Quebec (1759 and 1760), the big battles that determined North America\u2019s fate (France traded Canada for molasses islands), Fort De Chartres, the last French fort to be turned over to the British (and places like Manila, India, and Havana, where British and French clashed), not to mention San Souci, from where Frederick The Great directed his armies, Louisbourg remained\u2014the bastion that guarded the entrance to the Saint Lawrence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re not there yet\u2014tomorrow is our invasion day\u2014but so far, it\u2019s been a 4 When later generations of New Englanders grew exasperated by French-incited attacks, the Bay of Fundy was closer than Quebec, and expeditions came into the Bay to retaliate.\u00a0 And so we saw forts at Port Royal, and a neat one near Sackville, that changed names from Beausejour to Fort Cumberland when it went from French to British hands. (It successfully repelled a siege during the American Revolution, otherwise it might be named Fort Washington). Tensions with the United States lasted really until the 1840s, when Irish Americans sought to provoke a war between the United States and Great Britain in order to free Ireland.\u00a0 Indeed, there are a few islands that are still contested between the United States and Canada\u2014ill-defined as far back as the treaty of 1783.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The Loyalists who went to St. John’s, New Brunswick, brought with them a plaque honoring King George III, which wound up in a church in their new home. The second F is for the French, whose history in the Maritime Provinces doesn\u2019t stop in 1763, though there were several attempts to deport the settlers.\u00a0 Though parts of the area had been British since 1713, French Canadians were able to coexist with the British until the Seven Years\u2019 War.\u00a0 At that time, the British demanded an oath of allegiance which included a willingness to fight against the French, if need be; earlier French Canadians had to swear the oath and did so with the proviso that they would not be forced to fight the French.\u00a0 Consequently, the British packed them up and shipped them off to France or elsewhere. Thus was born Cajun country in Louisiana.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The third F is fishing villages\u2014cute ones that dot the coast and indicate the importance of fishing;\u00a0 even in 1763 France held out for the right to dry cod on what is still French territory\u2014St. Pierre and Miquelon. Towns like Peggy\u2019s Cove and Lunenburg attract hordes of tourists for their scenery, houses, and ambience.\u00a0 Indeed, we saw little agriculture until we went to Prince Tomorrow the fifth F\u2014Finally Louisbourg.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" August 5, 2018 Nearly a week ago, we left Bloomington on my quest to add one more experience to my understanding of the French and Indian War.\u00a0 Having seen where it started (Fort Necessity, thanks to George Washington), Montreal and Quebec (1759 and 1760), the big battles that determined North America\u2019s fate (France traded Canada … Continue reading “A four F vacation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-maritime-provinces"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7793,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions\/7793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> F vacation since we arrived in Halifax.\u00a0 The first F is for forts, and my thirst for forts (and more forts) has not yet been satisfied.\u00a0 Halifax itself was settled as a fort in the 1740s, preparation for the ongoing wars between Britain and France that lasted the better part of a century.\u00a0 It has the second largest ice-free harbor (Sydney is larger), and <\/a>has been the home of the North Atlantic fleet.\u00a0 The Citadelle, built later, has reenactors.\u00a0 An extra: we learned Charles Williams was living in Halifax.\u00a0 Charles, a former\u00a0 Scout, might have been the most talented Scout in Troop 19 history.\u00a0 He did it “in full pack” as the saying went, and we were delighted to have dinner with him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a> <\/a>It\u2019s not the only fort here, for the area was a battleground not only between the British and the French, but between New Englanders and the French, and the British and the French Canadians (Acadians).\u00a0 Indeed, the first settlement (before Quebec) was in 1605 at Port Royal in the Bay of Fundy.\u00a0 An expedition from Virginia destroyed it in 1611 (the effort to rebuild it in the 1930s included a plan to ask the descendants of the destroyers to rebuild it).\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a>Many returned\u2014after all, families had lived in the province for hundreds of years\u2014but they were not given citizenship until the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Today, Acadians are part of Canada\u2019s diverse population, but pockets (many in northern Nova Scotia and on Prince Edward Island) proudly fly a flag that resembles the French Flag, but has a yellow star on it.\u00a0 The original French settlement at Annapolis Royal was the capital city after the British conquered it until the British built Halifax.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a><\/a>Edward Island, a province with about 150,000, resembling for all the world Wisconsin with cattle and corn (and oysters and lobsters and mussels\u2014let\u2019s not get too carried away).\u00a0 The staff at the bed and breakfast (one of two we\u2019ve stayed at owned by Chinese\u2014my Chinese got us upgraded in St. John) was studying \u201cislands\u201d at the University of Prince Edward Island, and how to develop sustainable agriculture on islands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a> <\/a>The final F is for the Bay of Fundy, and its picturesque rocks (similar formations exist in the Pacific Northwest and Pictured Rocks, but Hopewell Rocks are on steroids) sculpted by the ocean.\u00a0 At low tide, you can walk around them; at high tide, <\/a> <\/a>the 40-foot swing in height covers the bases.\u00a0 Indeed, the tide in the Bay is the highest in the world, and it is used not only to attract tourists, (we paid $16 to walk over a \u201creversing falls\u201d where the tide overcomes the St. John River and pushes it upstream), but to generate power.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n