The Black Hole - Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia - Picture Perfect Postcards on Waymarking.com

View waymark gallery

The Black Hole - Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia

in Picture Perfect Postcards

Posted by:  T0SHEA

20T E 300539 N 4957339

The oldest permanent settlement in North America north of the Gulf of Mexico, Port Royal, later Annapolis Royal, is the site of the oldest fort in Canada, Fort Anne.

This vintage postcard is circa 1937, note the two cannons in the postcard photo. Though they may not be the same as in now photo they do look similar. Fort Anne is a wonderful place to visit when in Annapolis Royal.

As one ambles around the grounds of Fort Anne they will encounter various artefacts from the days the fort defended the town of Annapolis Royal from the enemy of the day. Intermingled with the trappings of war is the occasional historical marker relating the story of a particular aspect of the surroundings. This marker relates a bit of information on the west bastion, as much a ceremonial as a defensive location.

THE BLACK HOLE

The French built this powder magazine into the earthworks of their new fort in 1702. Both the French and the British used it to store gunpowder. In the early 1800s, it was used briefly as a prison or "Black Hole."

In the 1890s, local citizens who were concerned about the dilapidated state of Fort Anne won a grant from the Government of Canada to restore this magazine.

Important ceremonies took place here. In 1726, the British Crown and chiefs of the Mi'kmaw, Maliseet and Abenaki nations ratified a treaty during a trilingual ceremony. Also in 1726, some Acadians of the Annapolis Royal area swore a conditional oath of allegiance to the British Crown at this bastion.

Fort Anne was first the location of Charles Fort, settled in 1629-32 by Scottish settlers. Acadian settlers began to arrive in the area in 1636, and the site came under French rule from successive forts on the site until 1710. From 1713 to 1749, the British governed Nova Scotia from the fort, renamed Annapolis Royal. During its history under the French, the fort was captured by the British in 1654, 1690 and, for the final time, in 1710. The expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia, known as the "Grand Derangement", in 1755, was organized from the site, as were the importation and settlement of New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists.

In 1917 Fort Anne was declared a Dominion Park, Canada’s first administered national historic park. In 1920 it was designated Canada's first National Historic Site under the new National Historic Sites program which replaced the previous National Historic Parks program.

Today the site contains remnants of the Vauban fort (1702-8), including an underground powder magazine, a dry-stone retaining wall from 1760, shoreline cribwork from the 1740s, the Queen’s wharf ruins from the 1740s and the British Officers’ quarters, built 1797-9 and reconstructed 1934-5. Adjacent to the fort site are an Acadian cemetery; and a British garrison cemetery. Many old cannons still point out to sea as they would have done 250 years ago, in anticipation of the arrival of an enemy flotilla of warships.