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.