English: The smell of baking bread is characteristic of the eighteenth century town. Most people got most of their nutrition from bread, and this colony without farms brought in 500 pounds of flour per colonist every year, mostly from Canada. Crop failures threatened the flour supply in the 1740s, and shortages loomed on the eve of war.

Several commercial bakeries competed to serve the towns people, while this royal one, finished in 1732, supplied the garrison. The four bakers employed here lived upstairs. To the troops they doled out one six-livre loaf per man every four days. A little salt pork and some dried vegetables completed the soldiers’ rations.

The original bakery was destroyed by a fire that also claimed the artillery storehouse in 1756, but the floors have been preserved intact in this reconstruction. Here visitors may buy a loaf of soldiers’ bread, baked daily in these ovens from dough of 80% whole wheat and 20% rye flour.

Information from the Fortress Louisbourg Association web site: www.fortressoflouisbourg.ca/Overview/mid/10