Built by the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­ny, Prince of Wales Fort, lying across the Churchill Riv­er from town, is the most norther­ly stone fort in Cana­di­an his­to­ry, and is in good shape struc­tural­ly fol­low­ing a cou­ple of restora­tion efforts in the 20th Cen­tu­ry. The restora­tion con­tin­ues today, and if you time your vis­it right, you can watch stone masons work­ing on the struc­ture using tra­di­tion­al eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry meth­ods. It was a com­plete flop of a fort, though, falling to the French in 1782 with­out so much as a defen­sive shot being fired, its small non-mil­i­­tary force sur­ren­der­ing imme­di­ate­ly to the vast­ly supe­ri­or French force. It is only open to vis­i­tors in the late sum­mer months (Bel­u­ga whale sea­son), and is acces­si­ble by boat or heli­copter.