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Roach Races Through Time
Wanderer Phil Roach combined
athletics with a little history lesson when he competed in
the Louisbourg 9th Annual Race Through Time 8-miler
in mid-August.
Phil clocked 1:05:12 to finish 45th in a field
of 89 at the Cape Breton, Canada, race. The course started
at the village of Louisbourg and continued out to the Louisbourg
fortress and then came back again.
“The course was relatively flat, but
very scenie -- rocky coastline with great views of the harbour.
The modern town is a small fishing village that gets lots
of tourists in the summer,” Phil noted in his field
report to Wanderers HQ. “We ran out of town on the
main drag and on towards the fortess which is a National Park/Historic
Site. Paved road for the most part until we got onto park
property and circled behind the fortress. We then came in
through the back gates of the park and out the main gate and
back to town. Very good packed dirt trail and roads over this
section.”
Phil Roach at registration (with bag)
The fortress of Louisbourg was constructed by
the French beginning in 1719, and with the City of Quebec
was considered the bulwark of New France. The fortress over
its lifetime changed hands at least a half dozen times between
the French, English and even the Americans.
The French fortress was huge and was supposed
to protect the colony’s Atlantic coastline. However,
Charles Lawrence, a British governor during these colonial
times, noted that “the general design of the fortifications
is exceedingly bad and the workmanship worse executed and
so disadvantageously situated that...it will never answer
the charge or trouble.” Lawrence, it turned out,
was right. Louisbourg was only attacked twice, and it was
captured both times.
The fortress was eventually razed by the English
later in the 18th century, and the current fortress is almost
entirely a recreation.
Back to the race. “There was one park
animator in 18th century French Marine costume beating a drum
as we exited the fortress,” Phil continued in his
field report. “Everyone seemed to pick it up on
the way home as we passed this guy! No one passed us
(Phil was running with his brother in law Perry MacKinnon)
after about the 2km mark and we ran our fastest mile split
over the last mile as a couple of people were trying to chase
us down. Good spaghetti dinner afterwards, courtesty of a
local ladies group. The 1st place trophies were these crossed
swordfish swords on a plaque, hand made by a local fisherman...impressive.”
Perry MacKinnon coming through the fortress
site.
Phil observed that when the Wanderers strike
force comes up to Cape Breton this May for the Cabot Trail
Relay, they should stop in for a visit at Louisbourg to pick
up a little culture.
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