Tides and History

A delightful day exploring Annapolis Royal/Port Royal at the head of the Annapolis Basin, near Digby. 

In 1605, Pierre Dugua de Mons from France founded the first permanent Northern European settlement in North America at Port Royal. (For comparison, the Pilgrims founded Plymouth in 1620. Jamestown VA was founded in 1607. St. Augustine FL was founded in 1565 by the Spanish.) By all the accounts he and his colony actively engaged with the Mi'kmaq, hunted together, and cooperated with each other.


A century and half of wars ensued. Port Royal was burned by Samuel Argall, a Virginia (British) privateer in 1613. Then it gets complicated, with about thirteen assaults and almost as many turnovers between the French and British by battles and treaties signed in Europe. Thousands of Acadians were deported, thousands of American Loyalists (the losers of the American War of Independence) arrived. The British eventually defeated the Mi'kmaq and French in 1759.


Propaganda


The British Fort Anne has been preserved. On its grounds is a commemorative statue of Pierre Dugua de Mons installed 1905,  coincidently the same era the United Daughters of the Confederacy were installing propaganda statues commemorating a false history of the enslavers.


The statue is propaganda. There is no known historical depiction of Pierre Dugua, so nobody knows what he actually looked like. The hat is historically inaccurate, from a much later period. The frieze (not pictured - sorry) shows a larger-than-life Duqua landing on the shore greeting smaller-than-lifesize Mi'kmaqs. 




Annapolis Royal Generating Station was the only tidal plant in the Americas connected to the grid. Built in 1984, it broke down in 2019, and then environmental concerns killed it permanently. Nearly twenty five percent of the fish going through were killed by the turbines. A humpback whale got stuck inner basin for several days before it got free.


There wasn’t much left to see.  Most if was under water, and now removed. This is the end of my mentions of tidal power plants.




Roots go deep around here. We went to the farmers market today. One farmer (who sold us some great steaks!) claimed his family farm goes back to 1788. We went to a wine tasting near our campsite. The vineyard had 1611 on their logo in honor of the first local wine grapes. Dugua's settlement planted grapes for wine in 1611. That's a difference between the French settlers and the English: no wine grapes were planted at Plymouth or Jamestown. 



Just a pretty picture from very close to our campsite.


Happy Trails,


Krem and Barbara

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