Lesson 2 of 5 · 6 min read
From the Vikings to Cabot and Cartier, Europeans explored Canada's shores. France built an empire on the fur trade, until Britain won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759.
The first Europeans to reach Canada were Vikings from Iceland, who had colonized Greenland. About 1,000 years ago they reached Labrador and the island of Newfoundland. The remains of their settlement, L'Anse aux Meadows, are a World Heritage Site.
European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with John Cabot, an Italian immigrant to England. He was the first to map Canada's Atlantic shore, landing on Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island and claiming the "New Founde Land" for England. English settlement did not begin until 1610.
Between 1534 and 1542, Jacques Cartier made three voyages across the Atlantic, claiming the land for King Francis I of France. He was the first European to explore the St. Lawrence River and to see present-day Québec City and Montreal.
Cartier heard two captured guides use the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village." By the 1550s, the name Canada was appearing on maps.
In 1604, French explorers Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida, first on St. Croix Island (in present-day Maine), then at Port-Royal in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia). In 1608, Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
Life was hard: the colonists struggled against a harsh climate. Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, historic enemies of the Iroquois, a confederation of five (later six) First Nations who fought the French for a century. The French and the Iroquois made peace in 1701.
The French and Aboriginal peoples worked together in a vast fur trade, driven by European demand for beaver pelts. Leaders like Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac built a French empire in North America reaching from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. When the English demanded Quebec's surrender in 1690, Frontenac replied: "My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!"
In 1670, King Charles II of England gave the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over all the land draining into Hudson Bay. For the next 100 years the Company competed with Montreal-based traders. The canoe men of the trade, the voyageurs and coureurs des bois, formed strong alliances with First Nations.
England's colonies along the Atlantic coast grew richer and more populous than New France, and in the 1700s France and Great Britain fought for control of North America. In 1759, the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Québec City, marking the end of France's empire in America. Both commanders, Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed leading their troops.
Britain renamed the colony the "Province of Quebec." Its French-speaking Catholic people, the habitants or Canadiens, worked to preserve their way of life inside the English-speaking, Protestant British Empire, the story of the next lesson.
Key facts
Vikings from Iceland reached Labrador and Newfoundland about 1,000 years ago; their settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is a World Heritage Site.
European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with John Cabot, the first to map Canada's East Coast.
Between 1534 and 1542 Jacques Cartier made three voyages and claimed the land for King Francis I of France.
The name Canada comes from the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning village. It appeared on maps by the 1550s.
In 1604 Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida; in 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
The French and Aboriginal peoples worked together in a vast fur trade driven by European demand for beaver pelts.
In 1670 King Charles II gave the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the lands draining into Hudson Bay.
In 1759 the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham at Québec City, ending France's empire in America. Both commanders, Wolfe and Montcalm, were killed.
Answer all 4 to mark this lesson done.
1. What does the Iroquoian word "kanata" mean?
2. Who built a fortress at what is now Québec City in 1608?
3. What happened at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759?
4. What was the fur trade of New France driven by?
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