Description of Historic Place

The Picnic Shelter Lodge, at Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site of Canada, is a simple, rectangular, wood structure with a hipped roof used as a picnic shelter. It is designed in a traditional style and built with natural building material. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.

Heritage Value

The Picnic Shelter Lodge is a Recognized Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations, and its architectural and environmental value.

Historical Value
The Picnic Shelter Lodge is associated with the National Parks Branch efforts to evoke a specific rustic image loosely tied to historical antecedents appropriate to the specific site.

Architectural Value
The Picnic Shelter Lodge is a good example of a park support facility designed in a simple traditional style with cottage like character, as evidenced in its use of natural simple materials and details. It is a good functional design with quality craftsmanship.

Environmental Value
The Picnic Shelter Lodge maintains an unchanged historical relationship to its site and is compatible with the picturesque character of the fort in its coastal setting. The lodge is familiar as part of the complex of buildings used frequently by visitors to the national historic site of Canada.

Sources: Picnic Shelters (Lodge and Pavilion), Fort Beauséjour National Historic Site, New Brunswick, Federal Heritage Building Review Office, Notes, 96-073; Picnic Shelter, Lodge, Fort Beauséjour National Historic Site, New Brunswick, Heritage Character Statement, 96-073.

Character-Defining Elements

The following character-defining elements of the Picnic Shelter Lodge should be respected.

Its traditional style with cottage-like character and quality craftsmanship, for example:
- the simple massing of the building that consists of a one-storey, rectangular, hip-roofed structure with a massive fieldstone chimney;
- the elementary, symmetrical façades;
- the predominant use of wood with simple detailing such as, the horizontal wood siding installed between posts, the wide window, corner and door trims, wood fascia and soffit;
- the open interior volume of space;
- the surviving interior features such as, the exposed rafters and roof planking, stone fireplace, stone mantle with carved date and wood overmantle.

The manner in which the building maintains an unchanged relationship to its site, its compatibility with the picturesque character of the fort and its setting, and its familiarity as a landmark, as evidenced by:
- its ongoing relationship to its simple turf-grassed site nestled into the rolling terrain along the coast;
- its physical compatibility with other support facilities which together create a picturesque group adjacent to the ruins in the national historic site;
- the building’s use as a support facility frequented by visitors to the national historic site.