 To the north of the fort was a road going to Fort St. Frédéric. To the west was a low rise of land, beyond which lay Mount Hope, a rise that commanded part of the portage trail, but was too far from the fort to pose it any danger. The most serious geographic defect in the fort's location was Mount Defiance (known at the time of this battle as Rattlesnake Hill, and in the 1770s as Sugar Bush), which lay to the south of the fort, across the La Chute River. This 900 foot (270 m) hill, which was steep and densely forested, provided an excellent firing position for cannon aimed at the fort. Nicolas Sarrebource de Pontleroy, Montcalm's chief engineer, said of the fort's site, "Were I to be entrusted with the siege of it, I should require only six mortars and two cannon."
