Fort Ingall

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Aerial view of Fort Ingall on Lac Témiscouata .

Fort Ingall was a fortified military post on the west bank of Lac Témiscouata near what is now Cabano in the Canadian province of Québec . The fort was built in 1839 and was intended to control an important transport route between Lac Témiscouata and the St. Lawrence River (Grand Portage) during the Aroostook War (1838/39), a British-American border conflict .

The Fort

The fort comprised 13 buildings, including three bedrooms for a total of 100 soldiers, an officer's quarters, a kitchen, a bakery, a boathouse, an ammunition room and three latrines. It consisted of cedar and pine trunks laid one on top of the other and smeared with lime mortar. The roofs were covered with red-painted wooden shingles. The fort was surrounded by 4 m high palisades , which were provided with a walkway and numerous loopholes and two cannons for defense.

history

Fort Ingall

In the Treaty of Paris , which ended the American War of Independence in 1783 , the border between Canada and the United States was not clearly defined everywhere. The borderline between what is now the US state of Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick was particularly controversial. It was a wooded area and there were frequent arguments about the use of the wood. The conflict escalated in 1838 when 10,000 Maine militia troops were mobilized. The British then built a series of forts in the border area in 1839, Grand Sault and Petit Sault ( Edmundston ) in New Brunswick and Fort Degele and Fort Ingall in Québec to counter a possible American invasion . The most important post was Fort Ingall on the banks of Lac Témiscouata, which was supposed to block the Témiscouata portage. This road connected Lac Témiscouata with the Saint Lawrence River.

The conflict was finally ended without bloodshed with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842 and the fort abandoned. In 1967 the site of the fort was rediscovered and the remains were excavated by archaeologists. Between 1972 and 1978 8 of the 13 buildings of the former fortification were reconstructed and now serve as a museum and historical complex.

Individual evidence

  1. Fort Ingall at Lac Témiscouata  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: dead link / fortingall.ca  
  2. a b c French Wikipedia: Fort Ingall

Web links

Coordinates: 47 ° 41 ′ 39.2 "  N , 68 ° 54 ′ 4.7"  W.