CHAPTER III

FORT LA JOYE AND TALES OF THE MICMACS

I visit Fort la Joye, meet the Smith family, and review people's impressions of the Island. I tell the story of the fair Mineota.

HERE were scarcely any effective fortifications on the Island while the French held possession

of it. There was only a breastwork on the upper Hillsborough which commanded the water route to the settlements above; some sort of protection at the fishing settlement of St. Peter’s to which there was no road except an Indian path through the woods; and the more impressive fortification at Rocky Point. To be strictly accurate, none of these could be called a real fort, but the one at Rocky Point approached the nearest to the designation. The French built a fort there. The English built a fort. The French called theirs Fort 1a Joye. The English named theirs Fort Amherst. Now it is almost universally known as Fort Joy. The beauty of the earlier name has survived and the English fort is nearly forgotten.

There was a vast difference between those two races—a difl’erence shown even in their choice of names. Fort la Joye! How descriptive! And how expressive! Happy little sail-boats in the harbour, laughing waters, a smiling sky. But Fort Amherst! How very ordinary!

In this small tract of land at Rocky Point was centred the hopes and ambitions of the French settlers. Little it mattered to them what happened in the great

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