The town of Louisbourg is a community in the mainland of Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada. It belongs under the regional municipality of Cape Breton Island. Its name was given by the French military forces that founded the Fortress of Louisbourg at the southwest part of the harbor as well. The fortress is a fortified seaport that gives honor to Louis XV. However, the fortress was demolished in 1758 after its final siege, and was abandoned in 1768 by the British troops.
Subsequently, the town of Louisbourg was filled with English settlers who built a small fishing village across the harbor. In 1780s, the number of inhabitants in the village grew slowly with additional loyalists settlers as well. The construction of the second Louisbourg Lighthouse in 1842 had made it possible for the harbor to grow even more accessible for the settlers. This lighthouse had replaced the original French lighthouse that was destroyed in 1758.
In 1877, the town of Louisbourg was first reached by a railway. However, the railway was built poorly and ruined by a forest fire. Eventually, the railway was abandoned. In 1894, the arrival of the Louisbourg and Sydney Railway had brought huge volumes of winter coal exports to the town’s harbor. The harbor had been a winter coal port for the export industry. In 1912, the Canadian government ship Montmagny used the same harbor to land bodies from the RMS Titanic sinking.
In 1901, the town of Louisbourg was incorporated. However, in 1995, the town was un-incorporated because of the merging of all the municipal units to a single tier regional municipality in Cape Breton County. The town of Louisbourg has a huge population of English-speaking natives. Its name is pronounced as “Lewisburg”; however, the present community of the town has some slightly different spelling of the town’s name. Over the years, both the visitors and locals had used the original spelling of “Louisbourg” as well as other several companies in the place that include the Louisbourg and Sydney Railway. With this, the Nova Scotia House of Assembly passed a bill in April 6, 1966 changing the name of the town to its original French spelling, which is “Louisbourg”. This had been the official name of the town since then.
The economy of Louisbourg town is dominated by seafood processing and seasonal tourism industry. In the recent decades, the local fish processing of the town was negatively affected by the depletion of the ground fish stocks. The dominant economic engine of the town today is the Fortress of Louisbourg, which was completed in 1960s by the Parks Canada. This fortress is national historic site of Canada and holds huge scale of historical reenactments and events. Every year, it attracts thousands of tourists and employs many residents as well. The most recent historical event in the fortress is the 250th anniversary of the first siege victory of the British troops over the French forces. This took place last July 2008.
Every year, the town of Louisbourg hosts the biggest Crab Festival. It is a home to the Louisbourg Playhouse, which is a theater company that operates within an Elizabethan Theater. This playhouse was used as props in the 1994 Disney motion picture entitled “Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale”.
Today, a huge residential resort and golf course is under construction in the nearby community. This resort is set to open by 2010.
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