Place Fort La Tour

[00:00:01] I am Mark the NB Traveler and here we talk about New Brunswick stuff. Today

[00:00:09] we're going to be highlighting the upcoming season of Fort Latour here in

[00:00:15] St. John, but before we get into that also want to give you an update on this

[00:00:22] NB Travelers trip as he travels through Italy. So let's get started.

[00:00:32] Linda and this NB Traveler have been in Italy for a week now. A lot of things have changed

[00:00:38] in their travel since our first flight together to Hawaii 22 years ago for our honeymoon

[00:00:45] and since the two trips that we took to New Orleans a number of years ago, flying from the

[00:00:50] Toronto area. First of all, we now live in St. John, New Brunswick, a gorgeous part of Canada

[00:00:58] that's terribly underserved with air travel. So on the way to Rome we spent seven and a half

[00:01:04] hour layover in Toronto. Our flight choices from St. John are limited. Secondly, we aren't

[00:01:13] spring chickens so traveling has more challenges than it did previously. Air Canada provided a

[00:01:20] wheelchair for Linda from ticket counter to the door of the plane and then from the plane

[00:01:26] all the way through the airports of both Toronto and Rome and I got to tag along.

[00:01:34] We learned that the same type of service was also available on the passenger trains in Italy.

[00:01:41] This is definitely a big help to individuals with mobility challenges. Our first week in

[00:01:49] Italy was with sunshine. That is until today when the rain started coming down

[00:01:57] just as we returned from our train trip to Pisa. Like all the other tourist attractions in Italy,

[00:02:06] Pisa was crowded but the size of the crowd at the leaning tower was not crowded to the

[00:02:14] extent that we could not push through it like the crowd that we experienced at the Colosseum in Rome.

[00:02:22] A special thanks to Martin who took us on a private golf cart tour of Rome and to Mario

[00:02:29] who led us on an evening food experience our second night in Rome visiting four different

[00:02:35] locations. My favorite of all that we tried was the fried cod and also a special recognition

[00:02:43] to Mimo who served us at the first restaurant we tried in Rome. We liked them so much that

[00:02:51] we returned on the third night. Mimo was not working but Lorenzo served us quite well.

[00:02:58] I told them and I would mention them on the podcast and hope that they are listening.

[00:03:04] Silvia was our guide for a private tour of the Sistine Chapel and the museum while

[00:03:11] we were in Rome. The tour company had made special accommodations with the use of a wheelchair

[00:03:18] for Linda. I am doing this segment of the podcast from the Hotel David in Florence.

[00:03:25] It may not be the same quality as what I get at home but I wanted to give you an update.

[00:03:33] This hotel is ranked number one on TripAdvisor for Florence hotels and their ranking is

[00:03:39] justified. Well appointed rooms, friendly and helpful staff, a fabulous breakfast and a great

[00:03:47] happy hour. We are going to hate leaving this place when we travel by car to Podere

[00:03:55] Archangelou for two nights staying at an authentic farmhouse in Tuscany that's been

[00:04:04] a working farm and winery for over 30 years. And this gets us halfway through our travels in Italy.

[00:04:15] New Brunswick Traveler and Linda are fully enjoying the time that we have here.

[00:04:30] I'm here today with Don LeBlanc and we're going to be talking about Place Fort Latour.

[00:04:36] Welcome Don to NB Traveler. Thank you, glad to be here. So tell me a little bit about the upcoming

[00:04:44] season at the Fort. So we're excited to be coming up on June the 1st. That's going to

[00:04:52] be our opening day to the general public. We'll be open through the weekdays from 10am to 4pm.

[00:05:00] We close typically on Mondays and Tuesdays to support private group bookings and through

[00:05:07] the summer we're having several special events including the production of Hamlet this summer

[00:05:13] which we're excited to support. August 31st to November 10th we run for private and corporate

[00:05:20] group bookings which is essentially the cruise and the bus tour passenger visitations to our

[00:05:27] Fort. We do live and interactive cooking, do live interpretation which is in costume and

[00:05:35] in our summer students we have them participate in character presentations through the summer

[00:05:41] for our visitors. So if somebody comes to visit the Fort what type of an experience

[00:05:48] are they going to expect to receive? So we're presented especially in the summertime or

[00:05:56] especially in the summertime with our in-character presentations of both Charles Latour and his

[00:06:05] young bride who became infamously known as the Linus of Acadia. So we are dressed in costume

[00:06:16] through the summer period and we tell that story. We also have a professionally prepared

[00:06:22] film presentation which goes deeper into the overall story in the long history

[00:06:30] and it touches on the subsequent to the 17th century history of Portland Point

[00:06:40] and the Fort tonight. Well we're certainly fortunate to have placed Fort Latour here

[00:06:48] in St. John and I know it was a struggle to get it established.

[00:06:55] Actually there was even a fire that destroyed part of what had been built and had to be

[00:07:01] rebuilt. What's some of the challenges that exist with regard to preserving the historical

[00:07:08] structures and the artifacts? Well that has been a challenge and sort of right from the

[00:07:16] beginning about five or six years ago we had the as you know the fire and we had

[00:07:24] subsequent time delays and we had to do additional security measures to attempt to retain

[00:07:30] this fabulous historic artifact. We were lucky that none of the hemlock posts

[00:07:37] on the facade on the front were destroyed and so that has been retained and most of the

[00:07:45] structures most of the buildings on the exterior were fine so the interiors were damaged so that

[00:07:52] was has been a challenge. We're very pleased to be working in cohesion with our New Brunswick

[00:07:58] Museum and other partners in the area to retain and be able to tell the story that

[00:08:05] largely the challenges come from the fact that we had a long delay in being able to reopen

[00:08:12] due to the fire and the subsequent process and then we have such a short season that's

[00:08:19] the albatross around the necks of most of museums these tourist season museums if you will

[00:08:25] in all of our areas is that there is a relatively short season and so we have to be

[00:08:32] in a position to finance ourselves over essentially a 12-month period and that creates

[00:08:39] the challenges so we're working on we attempt to make the project self-sustaining

[00:08:49] and we look for continued support from our brothers in kind at the New Brunswick Museum

[00:08:56] and the province and our various original supporters for the original construction and

[00:09:03] that there was a you know quite a sincere and large scale investment in that original

[00:09:08] construction of course by three levels of government and you've ended up there with a

[00:09:14] very beautiful replica on a beautiful site. I encourage all of my listeners to take time

[00:09:22] this summer when they're in St. John to go down along Harbor Passage and stop in at the

[00:09:29] fort. I think that they have some type of a membership where you can get a season pass or

[00:09:37] something like that and then they also have daily rates if I'm not mistaken. Absolutely correct

[00:09:43] and you can we have many of our local citizens who support by way of season pass

[00:09:48] and for individual visits if you have family and friends it's a beautiful site to visit and

[00:09:57] if you have any type of Acadian history in your background particularly we encourage

[00:10:04] you to come and revisit the story of your heritage so and we have many visitors from

[00:10:13] around the world that visit us from that point of view. O'Don, thank you for your time.

[00:10:20] Appreciate the information and I look forward to spending time there at the fort myself this

[00:10:26] summer. You're welcome, thank you Mark and you have a great day. You too.

[00:10:39] Thank you for listening all the way through. Appreciate so much your support.

[00:10:43] You can go to my website. You can leave a message and a rating or you can go to Spotify

[00:10:50] or the podcast listener that you usually go to and leave a rating there about this episode.

[00:10:56] Next week we're going to be looking at the cruise industry in St. John. Have a great day

[00:11:04] and I hope you have a fantastic week.