Hugonin Battery (Fort Hugonin)

Hugonin Battery (Fort Hugonin)

Built in 1899 as a ‘sub-fort’ to Fort Ives, Hugonin Battery was designed to mount four 12-pounder Quick Firing (QF) guns to guard against fast-moving torpedo boats. It also worked in co-operation with Fort McNab, covering the shore below York Redoubt and protecting the main harbour minefield. The battery’s strategic value grew after 1905 when mining stopped and defence of the inner harbour, especially against torpedo craft, fell to the forts alone. It was considered to be the best positioned QF battery in the harbour. Fort Hugonin was active during WWI, but placed on ‘maintenance’ status after the war.

In the 1930s, the McNab School Board took over the caretaker’s quarters as a classroom for the island’s children and by 1933 there were 29 students enrolled. Around that time, the board took over another building at the fort which it used until 1939. The board forbade the children to play in the fort for fear they might fall into the underground works. However, it is unknown if the ban was effective. In 1939 the guns were removed from Hugonin Battery and moved to Strawberry Battery which had been built further south on McNabs Island in a better position to protect the anti-submarine net which extended from Maugher Beach to west shore of the harbour below York Redoubt during WW II.

In 1942 the site was transferred to the Canadian Navy when it was repurposed into a combined degaussing and ranging station. Effectively, vessels underwent two military applications: ships passing through the degaussing station had their ‘magnetic signatures’ altered to minimize the potential to attract magnetic mines, and the ranging station or ‘listening post’, took the ‘acoustic fingerprint’ of ships engines and other operating systems. These unique sonic images enabled ships to reduce their being detected by vessels ‘listening’ for other ships. The listening post operated on McNabs Island into the early 1990s when the facility was relocated to Purcells Cove.