Today the kids did homeschool while I took the truck out to get gas and propane.  We left the Moncton casino this afternoon and drove east to Aulac, New Brunswick, where we visited Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site:

The site preserves the fort built here as Fort Beauséjour in 1751 to protect what was established as the border between British and French Acadia by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.  In 1755, the British captured the fort from the French after laying siege to the fort.  The fort was renamed Fort Cumberland, and was instrumental in preventing American control of Nova Scotia during the revolutionary war.  This model depicts Fort Beauséjour in 1755 on the eve of the British assault:

The bell from an Acadian church nearby, cast in France in 1734:

This room in the visitor center was filled with relics collected by a local Acadian, and didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Fort Beauséjour:

Ship in a lightbulb:

We toured the fort, whose walls contained several casemates, this one built by the French to house foodstuffs:

Looking down into the fort:

Barracks foundation:

This stone casemate was added by the British after conquering the fort in 1755:

Another French casemate:

Cannons from the fort are on display:

The kids completed their Parks Canada Xplorers workbooks and received their tags:

Continuing east, we crossed into Nova Scotia and stopped at the nearby welcome center:

The welcome center had a display on traditional rug pulling and included an area where visitors could try it themselves:

A completed pulled rug:

The welcome center had a nice flower garden:

We continued east, stopping in Amherst, Nova Scotia.  We had called ahead and the Chamber of Commerce told us that the town had a public water spigot.  When we got there, we discovered it had an unthreaded hose, and that a button had to be pushed to dispense water one gallon at a time.  We used our water bandit to attach our hose, but the pressure was too high so I had to push the water bandit against the supply hose each time Trish pushed the button.  It took a while, and we were both pretty wet by the time we were done, but we managed to fill the tank.

After getting diesel (about $3.75 per gallon here), we continued on to overnight at the Walmart of Amherst.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.