Historic sites

When I was growing up in Sackville, N.B., there was a nearby National Historic Park at the restored Fort Beausejour (later renamed Fort Cumberland by the British). Back in 1755 the French had a fort there, while the British had Fort Lawrence on the Nova Scotia side of the Missiguash River.  Then the British conquered the French fort in their first victory of the Seven Years War.  We visited it often.

We frequently visited Cape Breton Island in the summer and several times we went to Fort Louisbourg, which is near my mother's birthplace.  Now they've rebuilt it and have 18th century re-enactors like in Williamsburg, Virginia. (When my mother was little she'd play in the ruins of the fort, which hadn't yet been restored.  Years later, when we visited the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, she recognized a displayed Louisbourg cannon from back then!)

When I was seventeen we visited Britain and France.  I'd just been reading A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman's history of the 14th century, which talked a lot about Coucy-le-Chateau.  So we visited that place.

Of course, most of Canada's history is fairly recent.  When I spent time in the British city of London, there was history everywhere!  I'd walk along the sidewalks and wonder how old the paving stones were and what stories they might tell.  I've also visited China, and a lot of their history is really old--like the Great Wall, or the place where they excavated all the ceramic soldiers...