The first French settlers arrived in Louisbourg Harbour in 1713. Seventeen years later the most formidable French military establishment on the Atlantic was under construction on the southwestern arm of the harbor. The fortress town, surrounded by a masonry and packed-earth wall almost 3.2 kilometres (2 mi.) long, served until 1758 as the governmental, commercial and military center of the French colony that included Cape Breton and Prince Edward islands. Learn More...