Chedabucto Bay, on the northeastern coast of Nova Scotia, was not a military stronghold. It was a commercial one. Since 1682, the Company of Acadia -- the Compagnie de la Pêche Sédentaire -- had operated a fishing monopoly there, led by merchants from La Rochelle, France, under the direction of Clerbaud Bergier. Fort Saint-Louis was built to protect the fishery, not to project military power. By 1686, the bay supported about fifty fishers, and Commandant Dauphin de Montorgueil oversaw the garrison of 25 soldiers stationed at the fort. The monopoly was never secure, though. Other Acadian merchants resented it, and the governor of Acadia himself, Michel Leneuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin, had been undercutting Bergier by selling fishing licenses directly to New Englanders. When war between England and France brought New England troops to Acadian shores, Chedabucto's commercial wealth made it a natural target.

Sir William Phips' 1690 expedition against Acadia was ambitious in scope. After capturing the capital at Port Royal, Phips dispatched Southack with 80 men to deal with Chedabucto. Southack landed 50 of his force at Salmon River, near present-day Cook's Cove, and led them overland toward the fort. The French garrison -- unlike the one at Port Royal -- chose to fight. As Southack's men approached, the fort's cannons opened fire. Southack demanded a surrender and was refused. He then led a detachment around the side of the fortification and threw firebombs over the walls, igniting the powder magazine. The explosion ended the resistance. The garrison capitulated on honorable terms, and the 25 French soldiers were sent to Plaisance, the French capital of Newfoundland. Southack reported two men killed and six wounded on his side, with no record of French casualties.

What happened after the battle mattered more than the battle itself. Southack spent several days methodically demolishing Fort Saint-Louis and destroying the fishery's stores -- the 50,000 crowns of fish that represented Chedabucto's economic lifeblood. Meanwhile, Phips dispatched Captain John Alden to raid Cape Sable in southwestern Nova Scotia and the villages around the Bay of Fundy, including Grand Pré and Chignecto. The campaign was intended, in part, to lay the groundwork for profitable postwar relations with the Mi'kmaq and Acadians. It achieved the opposite. The violence of the raids alienated the Acadian population, broke whatever trust had existed between them and the New Englanders, and made future cooperation nearly impossible. The Acadians had seen what New England's idea of diplomacy looked like, and they did not forget.

France regained control of Port Royal the following year, when Joseph Robineau de Villebon returned from France and reestablished French authority. The Company of Acadia limped on through further difficulties before dissolving entirely in 1702. Fort Saint-Louis itself remained in use at Chedabucto until the community was destroyed in the Squirrel Affair of 1718, another chapter in the long contest between English and French interests along the Nova Scotia coast. Today, the site of the battle lies near the small community of Guysborough, where Chedabucto Bay still opens onto the Atlantic with the same sheltered waters that once attracted Bergier's fishermen. No trace of the fort remains above ground, but the bay that made it valuable -- calm, deep, rich with fish -- is unchanged.