We started our morning at Port Royal. Port Royal was a fur trading post in 1607-1613. It was founded by Champlaign. Sadly it was burned to the ground by the English (Britain) but in 1936 they rebuilt the fort based on records and documents from Champlaign.
We loved feeling all the furs and learning how the trading post operated. Only men and a few boys manned the post. They felt it wasn’t safe for women and children yet.
We freely explored all the rooms, touched everything and interacted with the period guides.
The wooden shoes were fascinating to me. I decided they were too noisy not he wooden floors and Mom would NEVER let me have any.
I dressed up as a person with a candle who needed to go to the bathroom at night and took my shovel with me.
We played on the mats in the upper quarters. It was a great place to enjoy the breeze and work on our books for the XPlorer program. We are still enjoying the books.
We saw the defense system with mini cannons.
We spent a lot of time with a guide learning how to make shingles for the roofing. We even got to each keep a shingle he made for us as a free souvenir!
We learned how the buildings were made using NO nails.
Some of the roof boards were made on a giant sawhorse like this one with a huge saw.
Next we visited the Historic Gardens. It is rated Canada’s #1 garden in 2015 and receives many awards. I was amazed they could grow rice!
The rose garden was beautiful and smelled so great.
We stopped and smelled every rose we could get our noses near.
We wandered all the footpaths and saw the balance and beauty of the gardens.
This one rose was as big as Mom’s hand!
We are having a great time here in Annapolis Royal. Tomorrow we head to a national park for the day. Tonight we did get back out to go to town to see an opera! I have never seen an opera and boy was I happy we went. We saw Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. I laughed so hard. I was familiar with some of the lines as Mom says them when we do tongue twisters (To sit in solemn silence in a dull dark dock…). I recognized one song, The Little Maids from School. But my favorite past was when Ko-Ko read “the list” or people that wouldn’t be missed. I nearly fell out of my seat when he referred to the american politician with the bad hair and orange skin as one that wouldn’t be missed! After the opera was over and we were int he car I looked at Mom and said, “I am a kid who liked opera, so what?!” I have always enjoyed plays and theater and musicals. I will now add opera to something I will go see. This version was in English but Mom explained many are in other languages and it is good to brush up on the story before you attend. I would like to see an opera in full costume someday.