VOLUNTEER VACATIONS

FOUNDED BY FRANCE in 1713, the fortress town fell to an Anglo-American invasion in 1745, but the conquerors had to give it back in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. The Brits, starring an ascendant James Wolfe, then took it for good in 1758 after a massive siege by sea and land.

An ambitious reconstruction of the site was launched by the federal government in 1960. Almost five hectares of habitation have been rebuilt and truly must be seen to be believed, but even within the reconstruction area, the archaeological fieldwork is far from finished.

For four summers, the site has been accepting small groups of public participants in five-day sessions of professionally supervised excavating combined with behind-the-scenes tours of the facilities, including the conservation lab. Volunteers have been digging at one property in the reconstructed town which dates back to the early occupation and is associated with a prominent family named de la Vallière that had been in New France since the time of Champlain.

Our session has two adjacent rectangular dig areas, each not quite knee-deep. The ground has been peeled back to expose the occupation layer around a stone-capped drainage feature leading from the original governor’s residence to the harbour. As we carefully save for future generations of scholars every tiddlywink-sized piece of earthenware and glass, Fry holds out hope that we might hit the motherlode and find the real money pit: the outhouse, which is where artifacts really start to pile up, as latrines were used as fling-and-forget garbage disposals.

The outhouse, alas, is still out there, somewhere, but interesting things nevertheless have come to light in this humble yard. In the dig headquarters is a display of the program’s more rewarding finds, all unearthed by people on vacation: musket balls, an English wine bottle, gun flints, buttons, cufflinks, buckles, a hairpin, a fleur-de-lys cap badge, a fragment of Delft wall tile, and chunks of most of the types of porcelain, stoneware and earthenware known to Louisbourg. I find many bits of this stuff myself: the white glaze of French tinware and faience; the garish green of poterie de terre, or earthenware called Saintonge, for its origins in France’s Biscay region; Staffordshire slipware; French softpaste porcelain; and English salt glaze stoneware.

The program attracts participants of all kinds, and I was half expecting a group of retirees. Instead, I find myself working with a team of young women, who are either in university or who have recently graduated. None have brought boyfriends or spouses along. The demographic exception is a fellow more my age who grew up and lives nearby, is well read in local history and has been enjoying the experience until, unfortunately, he is called away by work matters.

Except for two sisters, none knew each other before arriving, and it is a fluke that so uniform a group has come together. Some are from Nova Scotia, but others have come from Montréal and Toronto and one is from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Most, but not all, have studied history or anthropology. None have ever done field archaeology, and all are willing to devote a vacation to trying it. “Who wants to lie on a beach for a week?” one of them asks by way of explaining her presence. I’m twice as old as most of them, but they put up with me.

I wonder how long it will take for them to weary of finding small bits of glass and pottery, and if the program is living up to their expectations. They had already been digging for a day before I arrived, but over the next two days, their enthusiasm does not flag. Duggan assures me that no one has ever been disappointed that the program didn’t turn out to be an Indiana Jones relic rescue. It’s definitely hands-on history, and there is genuine excitement among the participants when, during a break in digging, they recognize in a site exhibit preserved examples of the earthenware of which they have been finding the smallest shards. It leads naturally to questions about how these pots and plates were used, what life was like for this Acadian community.

The public archaeology program is a stroke of genius by Parks Canada. People pay not only to dig up a small corner of Louisbourg, but to serve as an exhibit. I look over my shoulder and find a phalanx of fascinated tourists lined up against the rope cordon. I realize that our troweling and screening of dirt is the one bona fide human activity here. The town is an aweinspiring reconstruction, but a reconstruction nevertheless. The costumed soldiers and townsfolk are “animators” pretending to be living almost three centuries ago. And they do a fine job, but what we are doing is the real deal. We are actually digging things up that haven’t seen daylight for almost three centuries.