In the early days of May 2025, eight students from the Perth Campus’ Heritage Carpentry and Joinery (HCJ) program travelled to the Fortress of Louisbourg, an 18th-century French military base in Cape Breton Island, N.S., to provide important restoration work for the historic structures. 
Isabelle Dudzinski, a second-year HCJ student and the 2025 Perth Campus valedictorian, said that the journey to Louisbourg and the subsequent work on the fortress served as a perfect culmination of her time in the program.
“Having that [Loisbourg] experience, where we have all the theory, where we have a bit of the knowledge and [are able] to engage with the theory in a practical way was really nice,” said Dudzinski. “Heritage work is very different in [a controlled] environment like a classroom; a lot of things really won’t go the way you want them to in a real-life setting, so it was really good experience.”
Dudzinski began her carpentry adventure after her family moved to a small farm roughly half an hour from Perth. The requirement to build structures like chicken coops and animal pens, as well as to have a better understanding of an old barn on the property, led Dudzinski to the HCJ program.
“Studying at the Perth Campus has been a really good experience,” said Dudzinski. “Though at first, I wasn’t really sure that I enjoyed carpentry. When I first started doing the shopwork I was so bad, it was frustrating to just try and do something and have it not work. But then as I got better and I learned the skills, I found I was able to complete projects and find accomplishment in them.”
Throughout her time in the program, Dudzinski became a common face among her fellow learners, staff and faculty at the Perth Campus. She organized end-of-year potlucks, developed the Perth Campus yearbook and was the driving force behind the Perth Campus soccer club, all experiences that let her get to know the people that walked the campus’ halls.
Dudzinski and her classmates first learned about the prospect of the Louisbourg trip in the fall of 2024, when their professors announced the students would be building historically accurate shutters for the fortress. By the time the students began building the shutters — made from white oak and white pine and using a combination of modern techniques and historical methods — there had been back and forth discussion between the College and Parks Canada to see if the students would actually be able to install the shutters themselves.
The HCJ students traveled to Louisbourg by plane and car and were given rooms within the fortress’ barracks for the duration of the trip, where they slept on hard wooden beds with mattresses made of straw. According to Dudzinski, the chance to stay in the fortress after hours and to effectively have the entire place to themselves was a highlight of the trip. They were given free rein to wander, and Dudzinski saw the fortress in the morning mists, the dead of night and the rising sun amid the days of work.
“The Louisbourg people, they did a really good job of organizing us, they had everything set up — all the shutters where they were supposed to go, the scaffolding up and four [Parks Canada] carpenters who went with us,” she said.
Dudzinski was one of three students to stay for the entire event, during which time she not only got the chance to install the shutters and add her own mark on the historic structures but also got the chance to work on a timber frame porch and a cedar roof. Beyond the work, Dudzinski and her classmates also had the opportunity to go on an archaeology tour and an off-hours tour of the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.
With the Louisbourg adventure now in her rearview mirror, Dudzinski is excited to begin looking to the future. On Thursday, June 5, she attended the Perth Campus 2025 Convocation ceremony as both a graduating learner and the campus’ valedictorian, where she gave a speech that highlighted her personal satisfaction with her experience at the College, how it has impacted her and the difference her classmates and teachers have made in her life.
“By choosing to go to Perth, we were all thrown together to spend a good chunk of these past two years together, eating lunch, hanging out, even rooming in the same apartment,” she said. “We were all our own individuals, pursuing our lives across Ontario, Canada, India, Africa and beyond, when our worlds all clashed because of the tiny Perth campus.”
More information on the spring graduation ceremonies can be found on the Algonquin College Convocation website.
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