National parks

When I was young, my family often visited Fundy National Park in southeastern New Brunswick.  We liked the nature trails and camped out there.  We also visited P.E.I. National Park for the beaches, and Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Near my hometown of Sackville, N.B., there was Fort Beausejour National Historic Park.  It had a museum with exhibits about the 18th-century colonies.  Back in 1755 it was the French fort on a ridge, looking southeast to the British Fort Cumberland on a parallel ridge.  When war broke out it was the first British conquest.  Brook Watson was there, a young man who'd lost his leg to a Havana shark (there was a famous painting of this) and later became Lord Mayor of London.  We heard stories about how the British cattle wandered across the icy Missiguash River onto the French side and Watson swam across and brought them back, then later he impressed some hostile First Nations warriors by taking a dagger and repeatedly stabbing his wooden leg.

We also visited Fort Louisbourg National Historic Park in Cape Breton. (My mother came from the nearby town of Louisburg and remembered playing in the ruins when she was little, before they started restoring the place.) Now they have guides there playing 18th-century French settlers.  Fort Louisbourg has an important place in American history due to the 1748 campaign where New England militias came together to take the fort, the beginning of the United States Army.