Village Squire, 1977-06, Page 32Lorant provided only spoons.
"They used to cook not that different
from what we do," says Jeannette Haley.
Small wonder: 18th -century Louisbourg
relied heavily on the fishery, and so does
the modern town across the harbour. Fish,
bread, salt meatand root vegetables were
staple foods then, and still are. Jeannette
Haley is sometimes amused when the
historians become giddy at the discovery of
some new aspect of the old French lifestyle
of Isle Royale, as Cape Breton was then
known. "To them it's new," she smiles,
"but I've known that all my life, me."
"They ate a lot of chicken, too" says
Mary Kennedy, another animator whose
husband works in the Louisbourg plant of
National Sea Products. Of course we raise
chickens and pigs and other animals right
in the fortress. We had beautiful vegetable
gardens there last summer, too. They
didn't eat potatoes -- apparently the
French thought that was a useless
vegetable -- but they ate a lot of rice
instead."
That's true: the lunch I had in Pierre
Lorant's cabaret consisted of whole-wheat
bread, rice, turnips and an excellent stew.
"Made with the iron pots right in the
fireplace," Mary Kennedy nods. "People
at the fortress make those pots, you know,
and they're the most beautiful thing you
ever saw to cook with. Oh, the food is so
good! Did you see the clockwork machine
they have to turn the spits in the
fireplaces? You wind the weight up, and it
takes about 45 or 50 minutes to come down.
The spit turns really slowly and the meat
cooks evenly, right through. And the toast,
you never tasted toast like that, made right
before the fire.
"They had all the means of surviving,
you know. It seems crude to us, but really
we copied everything off of them -- that
spit, for instance, that's our rotisserie."
Roger Burrows, a bearded native of
Northampton. England, who is Visitor
Services Officer and who supervises the
animators, brims with pain and frustration
when he talks about the chickens. The
chickens of the 18th century were not like
our highly specialized breeds, they were
smaller, wirier, much more like wildfowl.
In 1976, the staff was attempting to breed a
new hybrid, of modern stock. which would
resemble the authentic Louisbourg hen of
two centuries ago.
One October morning, not long before
the fortress closed for the winter, a couple
of soldiers entered a strangely silent
courtyard. Behind a shed they found a red
fox picking up the last two carcasses.
"They cornered the fox," says Burrows,
"but they couldn't do anything to him --
you can't kill animals in a National Park. So
they had to let him go. And now we have to
start all over again."
The foxes are a feature of Louisbourg,
which is still relatively remote, surrounded
by ocean and forest. The foxes have
learned that they won't be harmed in the
park, and they're bold enough to wander
the streets of the rebuilt town even in
midafternoon, quite unperturbed by the
tourists. At night, the old town is theirs.
"One time we had a detachment of
soldiers stay overnight, just to get the
flavour of that experience." recalls Bill
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30, VILLAGE SQUIRE%JUNE 1977.
.ma
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Wendy
O'Shea. "In the middle of the night, one of
them went outside to a latrine. The next
thing the other fellows heard was an
ungodly screaming. and this fellow calling
for someone to come help him. So they
came, and he was terrified at this awful
noise that was corning from a casement
close bv. 1 don't blame him either; this can
be a really errie place at night. What it
turned out to be, anyway, was a baby fox
that had fallen into the basement and
couldn't get out."
Foxes. French culture, food and a
fortress. Memories of a day when the
future of a continent hung on the outcome
of sieges and naval battles along the
wooded shores of Cape Breton. Move-
ments in the night. the revenant English
villains, perhaps, or the rustic New
England militia returning to sack the city of
King Louis.
The sentry looming suddenly out of the
fog and darkness that swirl around the
bases of the crenellated walls. His bayonet
fixed. His voice harsh.
"Qui va la?" "Who goes there?"
Un renard, mon ami. it's only a fox.
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