Cape Bretoner builds virtual 18th

Cape Bretoner builds virtual 18th-century Fortress of Louisbourg

With only a quarter of the fortress physically rebuilt, Daniel MacNeil is constructing the rest online

Almost 300 years after the British nearly destroyed a Cape Breton fortress, one man is restoring it to its former glory — one pixel at a time.

Daniel MacNeil has created an online 3D model showing what the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site looked like in 1750. The aerial model captures the fortress at its peak, before a British siege destroyed it to prevent resettling. Parks Canada reconstructed roughly a quarter of the fortress in the 20th century, leaving the remaining grounds as open field and scattered rubble.

The model includes surviving structures like the King’s Bastion and surrounding town, while filling in spaces lost to history: a military hospital, a courthouse, city gates and dozens of French homes.

"When people come here, they think this is the size it was,” MacNeil says. “And when you look over here with these fields, those were all streets, those were all houses. And when they reconstructed it, they only had enough resources to reconstruct this much.

"This place used to have 4,000 people in it. And when you look at [the existing fortress], like, obviously 4,000 people wouldn't live in these houses."

MacNeil says clearing up that misconception is a main reason why he made the model, plus he just loves spending time in the fortress and learning its history.

Since he was five, the longtime Cape Bretoner has taken tours, devoured historical facts and even played a French child in Parks Canada's re-enactment program. He now takes his daughter every year.

“I love eating fresh bread from the bakery, the smell of coal and the blacksmith, the whole experience itself,” MacNeil says. “It's always just been a part of who I am.”

Why this man is rebuilding the Fortress of Louisbourg, pixel by pixel

MacNeil also has a connection to the people who stormed the fortress.

His great-great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel Charles O’Neil, was a Scottish soldier with the British forces that took the city. O’Neil worked as a blacksmith in Louisbourg after its fall before moving to Quebec City, where he died in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

Reconstructing the fortress online

MacNeil has been working on his online model since April. He started with just the King’s Bastion, before moving on to reconstructing the whole fortress.

He chased down 1750s blueprints from the Beaton Institute public archive, the Krause House and online databases, while spending hours at the physical site studying its baroque architecture.

MacNeil says there was actually quite a bit of information he could find on how the fortress once looked.

"Luckily, the French kept amazing records that I could just reference completely and import it into the Google SketchUp program,” MacNeil says.

He chipped away at the project in his spare time around his day job as a film and television camera operator.

Beyond reconstructing the fortress, MacNeil has added settings to customize the weather and time in Louisbourg. Users can adjust the time of day, change the day, or add fog.

He hopes schools will adopt the model as an educational tool.

“I’d just love for people to use it, because originally, I was just making this for me and I didn't really think it would interest anyone else but me,” MacNeil says. “But I'm glad that others are interested.”

Parks Canada has also taken notice.

Eric Letcher, visitor experience product development officer at the fortress, said the agency was working on a virtual model when MacNeil beat them to it.

"It's something that's really sort of hard to let people visualize,” Letcher says. “So this sort of model is something we hope to use as an educational tool to give people a better sense of the extent of 18th-century Louisburg."

Letcher noted that virtual models improve accessibility, and Parks Canada is in early discussions to integrate MacNeil’s work into the visitor experience.

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Ethan Hunt is a reporter for CBC Nova Scotia from Lunenburg, N.S. He regularly covers sports, the environment and mental health matters. You can reach him at ethan.hunt@cbc.ca.