Port-Royal National Historic Site of Canada
Port Royal, Nova Scotia
Detail
© Parks Canada Agency / Agence Parcs Canada
Address :
53 Historic Lane, Port Royal, Nova Scotia
Recognition Statute:
Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date:
1923-05-25
Dates:
-
1939 to 1939
(Construction)
-
1605 to 1613
(Significant)
Event, Person, Organization:
-
Samuel de Champlain
(Person)
-
Mattieu Da Costa
(Person)
-
Order of Good Cheer
(Organization)
-
Mi'kmaq
(Organization)
-
Acadians
(Organization)
Other Name(s):
-
Port-Royal
(Designation Name)
Research Report Number:
1994-OB-04, 2011-CED-SDC-021
DFRP Number:
02585 00
Plaque(s)
Existing plaque: 53 Historic Lane, Port Royal, Nova Scotia
Replica of the original Habitation of De Monts erected here in 1605. Home of the Order of Good Cheer founded by Champlain. Birthplace of Lescarbot's play, " The theatre of Neptune", and of his history and poems of New France. Headquarters of the settlement of Poutrincourt and Biencourt until the habitation was destroyed by Argall of Virginia in 1613.
Description of Historic Place
Port-Royal National Historic Site of Canada consists of a group of wooden buildings within a stockade, erected as a historic reconstruction of an early 17th-century French fort. The habitation is located on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin opposite Goat Island.
Heritage Value
Port-Royal was declared a national historic site to commemorate: the legacy of Port-Royal, French culture, commerce and colonization manifest in North America, 1605-1613, the experiences of Mi'kmaq and French colonists, 1605-1613 the replica of the Habitation as a milestone in the Canadian heritage movement.
The heritage value of Port-Royal National Historic Site resides in the reconstructed buildings as an illustration of an early attempt at French colonization and as an example of an early twentieth-century approach to heritage conservation. Port-Royal National Historic Site was constructed in 1939.
Sources: HSMBC Minutes, 1994; Commemorative Integrity Statement, 1997.
Character-Defining Elements
Key features contributing to the heritage value of this site include:
the grouping of structures around an inner courtyard within a stockade, the rectangular, two-storey massing of the buildings with high peaked roofs, the design believed to be typical of 17th-century rural French architecture, the wooden construction materials, the craftsmanship and construction techniques replicating 17th-century rural French building techniques, including interior furnishings, the illustration of 17th-century functional arrangements through the spatial relationship of buildings and landscape features, the well, pathways and other man-made landscape features, the siting between mountains and shore on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin with sheltered anchorage opposite Goat Island, the viewplanes from the basin's entrance to the river mouth at the opposite end of the basin.