Jacques Cartier
A Jacques Cartier statue at Cap-Rouge, site of the first French attempt to establish a colony along the St. Lawrence River.
A view of the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City in 2019.
In 1534, King Francis I commissioned Jacques Cartier of Saint-Malo, France to explore the region.
Cartier, sailing under the French flag, would ultimately make three voyages to the Atlantic coast of present-day Canada.
The Frenchman would detail his voyages in three memoirs published in Europe. Cartier’s accounts describe the flora and fauna the Frenchman came across in this foreign land, recount his treacherous dealings with the natives he encountered in the Saint Lawrence region, offer translations of some local words, list the French names he assigned to the many geographical features he visited (e.g. Mont Royal), and humorously indicate how seemingly perturbed Cartier was that the natives’ food was cooked without salt.
First Voyage (1534)
In 1534, King Francis I commissioned Jacques Cartier of Saint-Malo, France to explore the St Lawrence region of present-day Canada.
The grant of money to Cartier for the 1534 voyage read:
[T]he sum of six thousand livres tournois [is] ordered to be delivered to him …. for the payment of expenses that will have to be incurred for the provisioning, fitting out, and equipping of certain ships …. and for the pay and maintenance of the sailors and other persons who …. under the leadership of Jacques Cartier are to make the voyage from this kingdom to Newfoundland to discover certain islands and countries where it is said that a great abundance of gold and other precious things is to be found.
In April of 1534, Cartier and his crew of 61 men and two ships set sail from Saint-Malo, a port city in the northwest of France, heading west across the Atlantic.
Twenty days later, the French expedition arrived at the Atlantic coast of present-day Canada.
A map showing the location of Saint-Malo, France.
There Cartier would explore the Gulf of St Lawrence and meet a group of Stadaconans at the Gaspé Peninsula, who were there as part of a summer fishing expedition.
The Gaspé Peninsula and Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Cartier provides us with his account of this first encounter with the Stadaconans:
They numbered, as well men, women as children, more than 200 persons, with some forty canoes. When they had mixed with us a little on shore, they came freely in their canoes to the side of our vessels. We gave them knives, glass beads, combs, and other trinkets of small value, at which they showed many signs of joy, lifting up their hands to heaven and singing and dancing in their canoes.
The first encounter between the French expedition and the people of Stadacona thus seems to have been amicable enough.
But things would quickly take a turn for the worse.
In July of 1534, Cartier erected a ten-meter wooden cross – one of several the Frenchman would erect on his voyages – on the peninsula displaying the phrase “VIVE LE ROI DE FRANCE” (LONG LIVE THE KING OF FRANCE).
Cartier recounts:
On the twenty-fourth of said month, we had a cross made thirty feet high .... and above it a wooden board, engraved in large gothic characters, where was written, LONG LIVE THE KING OF FRANCE. We erected this cross on the point in their presence and they watched it being put together and set up. And when it had been raised in the air, we all knelt down with our hands joined, worshipping it before them; and made signs to them, looking up and pointing towards heaven, that by means of this we had our redemption.
The erection of the cross symbolized the arrival of both the Catholic Church and European imperialism – and everything those institutions portended – to the region; the sun had begun setting on the region’s native societies.
Cartier details the reaction of the natives to this encroachment:
[P]ointing to the cross he [the leader of the native group] made us a long harangue, making the sign of the cross with two of his fingers; and then he pointed to the land all around about, as if he wished to say all this region belonged to him, and that we ought not to have set up this cross without his permission.
The Frenchman responded to the protest by kidnapping several native fishermen.
He would eventually release three of the five captives, keeping two of them – Dom Agaya and Taignoagny, both of whom were sons of the chief of Stadacona, Donnacona – as hostages.
Cartier would use his hostages as local guides for the rest of his trip around the Gulf.
The chief’s sons would then be dragged back to France at the end of Cartier’s first voyage, arriving in Saint-Malo in September of 1534.
There, they were taught the French language and the edicts of Catholicism.
Cartier would then use them as guides during his second expedition to the St Lawrence region the following year.
Writing about the Stadaconans he encountered on this first expedition, Cartier described the natives as follows:
This people may well be called savage; for they are the sorriest folk there can be in the world, and the whole lot of them had not anything above the value of five sous, their canoes and fishing-nets excepted. They go quite naked, except for a small skin, with which they cover their privy parts, and for a few old skins which they throw over their shoulders…. They have their heads shaved all around in circles, except for a tuft on the top of the head, which they leave long like a horse’s tail. This they do up upon their heads and tie in a knot with leather thongs. They have no other dwelling but their canoes, which they turn upside down and sleep on the ground underneath. They eat their meat almost raw, only warming it a little on the coals; and the same with their fish …. They never eat anything that has a taste of salt in it. They are wonderful thieves and steal everything they can carry off.
Second Voyage (1535 - 1536)
In October of 1534, Cartier was commissioned to take a second voyage to the St. Lawrence region, this time with a larger fleet of three ships: La Grande Hermine, La Petite Hermine, and L’Emerillon.
We …. commission and appoint you …. at the wish and command of the king, to conduct, guide, and employ three ships, each equipped and provisioned for fifteen months, to complete the navigation already begun by you of the lands to be discovered beyond Newfoundland.
For this voyage, Cartier was granted a sum of three thousand livres:
[T]he sum of three thousand livres tournois [is] order to be paid him …. to change and employ for the fitting-out, equipping, provisioning, and other expenses that will have to be paid for the conduct of the voyage that Jacques Cartier …. has undertaken to make to go discover certain distant lands.
In May of 1535 Cartier and 110 men began this second voyage to the site of present-day Canada.
The voyage would not be a pleasant one for the Frenchmen’s crew: 25 of Cartier’s malnourished men would die of scurvy, an unsightly ailment caused by a lack of vitamin C that resulted in slow wound healing, bleeding of the gums, and physical exhaustion.
It is on this voyage, which ventured farther west than the previous one, that Cartier sailed the river that is today referred to as the St. Lawrence.
Cartier and his crew, guided by their local hostages, journeyed west on the roughly 800-mile-long river that today runs alongside the cities of Quebec and Montreal, counts the Ottawa River – along which Canada’s capital city stands – as a tributary, and ends at Lake Ontario, whose northern shore is home to the city of Toronto.
This journey would bring the existence of this all-important waterway to the attention of Europe.
Journey to Stadacona
Sailing west on the St. Lawrence the French expedition was guided to the village of Stadacona, the home of Dom Agaya and Taignoagny.
The village was part of a broader region under the control of chief Donnacona.
It is in reference to this region that Cartier first makes use of the word that today is the name of the country that stretches from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean and is home to over 35 million people: Canada.
It appears the word comes from the native word kanata, meaning village or town, and that Cartier chose to use it as a name for the territory under the control of Donnacona.
Soon after Cartier’s voyage European maps would be inscribed which followed the explorer’s precedent, referring to this area along the St. Lawrence River as Canada.
And in 1867, the name Canada would be chosen for the country formed out of the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
(Related: The New York City island of Manhattan also got its current name as a result of a European – in this case Dutch - variant of a native word: the native Lenape name for the island was Mannahatta, meaning island of many hills.)
Referring to being guided to Canada by his two captives, Cartier writes:
And it was told us by the two savages whom we had captured on our first voyage, that this cape from part of the land on the south which was an island [Anticosti Island]; and that to the south of it lay the route from Honguedo [Gaspé], where we had seized them when on our first voyage, to Canada; and that two days’ journey from this cape and island began the kingdom of the Saguenay, on the north shore as one made one’s way towards this Canada.
Cartier recounts arriving in the region he called Canada thusly:
On the seventh of the month …. we set out from this [Coudres] island to proceed up stream, and came to fourteen islands …. This is the point where the province and territory of Canada begins. One of these islands is large, being some ten leagues long and five leagues wide, and is inhabited by people who are much employed in fishing for the many varieties of fish caught in this river, according to the season…. After we had cast anchor between this large island and the north shore, we went on land and took with us the two men we had seized on our former voyage. We came upon several of the people of the country who began to run away and would not come near, until our two men had spoken to them and told them that they were Taignoagny and Dom Agaya. And when they knew who it was, they began to welcome them, dancing and going through many ceremonies.
Map showing the relative locations of the Island of Coudres (Isle-aux-Coudres) and Quebec City, where Stadacona once stood.
Upon arriving at the village Dom Agaya and Taignoagny were set free and the released captives introduced Cartier to the people of Stadacona.
Referring to the village of Stadacona, Cartier writes:
This region is as fine land as it is possible to see, being very fertile and covered with magnificent trees of the same varieties as in France, such as oaks, elms, ash, walnut, plum trees, yew-trees, cedars, vines, hawthorns, bearing a fruit as large as a damson, and other varieties of trees. Beneath these grows hemp as that of France, which comes up without sowing or tilling it.
Referring to the inhabitants’ religious beliefs, Cartier writes:
This people has no belief in God that amounts to anything; for they believe in a god they call Cudouagny, and maintain that he often holds intercourse with them and tells them what the weather will be like. They also say that when he gets angry with them, he throws dust in their eyes. They believe furthermore that when they die they go to the stars and descend on the horizon like the stars.
Though proselytization was not an explicitly defined objective of Cartier’s second commission, his response to learning the natives’ religious beliefs presents an early effort to impart the Catholic dogma on his hosts:
After they explained these things to us, we showed them their error and informed them that their Cudouagny was a wicked spirit who deceived them, and that there is but one God, who is in heaven, who gives us everything we need and is the creator of all things and that in him alone we should believe. Also that one must receive baptism or perish in hell. Several other points concerning our faith we explained to them which they believed without trouble, and proceeded to call their Cudouagny, Agojuda [which Cartier’s crew translated as bad and treacherous], to such an extent that several times they begged the captain to cause them to be baptized. And one day the leader [Donnacona], Taignoagny, and Dom Agaya came with all the people of their village to receive baptism; but since we did not know their real intention and state of mind, and had no one to explain to them our faith, an excuse was made to them; and Taignoagny and Dom Agaya were requested to tell them that we should return another voyage and would bring priests and some chrism, giving them to understand, as an excuse, that no one could be baptized without his chrism. This they believed; for [Taignoagny and Dom Agaya] had seen several children baptized in Brittany [when they had been carried back to France at the conclusion of Cartier’s first voyage]. And at the captain’s promise to return, they were much pleased and thanked him.
It appears that this experience, and the conclusion that the Stadaconans would readily receive baptism, encouraged the explicit inclusion of proselytization as an objective in Cartier’s third commission. For Cartier later writes:
From what I have seen and been able to learn of these people, I am of opinion that they could easily be molded in the way one would wish. May God in his holy mercy turn his countenance toward them. Amen.
Journey to Hochelaga
It also appears that, while held captive by Cartier, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny had informed the explorer of the existence of Hochelaga, a native village located west of Stadacona on the site of present-day Montreal: Cartier’s record of his second voyage for the first time shows a determination to venture to the site which received no mention in his account of his first voyage.
But when Cartier demanded that his former prisoners accompany him on the voyage to serve as guides to the new destination, a diplomatic rift ensued.
Dom Agaya and Taignoagny were understandably hesitant to reboard Cartier’s vessel having previously been kidnapped by the captain and forcibly sailed across the Atlantic, not to be returned home until the following year.
Their refusal meant Cartier would venture to what for the French crew was uncharted territory without local guides.
Nevertheless, they would arrive at Hochelaga in October.
Cartier recounts his first meeting with the residents of Hochelaga as follows:
[O]n reaching Hochelaga there came to meet us more than a thousand persons, men, women, and children, who gave us as good a welcome as ever father gave to his son, making great signs of joy; for the men danced in one ring, the women in another, and the children also apart by themselves. After this they brought us quantities of fish, and of their bread which is made of corn, throwing so much of it into our longboats that it seemed to rain bread. Seeing this the Captain, accompanied by several of his men, went on shore; and no sooner had he landed than they all crowded about him and about the others, giving them a wonderful reception. And the women brought their babies in their arms to have the Captain and his companion touch them, while all held a merry-making which lasted more than half an hour. Seeing their generosity and friendliness, the Captain had the women all sit down in a row and gave them some tin beads and other trifles; and to some of the men he gave knives. Then he returned on board the long-boats to sup and pass the night, throughout which the people remained on the bank of the river, as near the longboats as they could get, keeping many fires burning all night, and dancing and calling our every moment aguyase, which is their term of salutation and joy.
Cartier also describes what he saw upon arriving at Hochelaga:
The village is circular and is completely enclosed by a wooden palisade in three tiers like a pyramid. The top one is built crosswise, the middle one perpendicular, and the lowest one of strips of wood placed lengthwise. The whole is well joined and lashed after their manner, and is some two lances in height. There is only one gate and entrance to this village, and that can be barred up. Over this gate and in many places about the enclosure are species of galleries with ladders for mounting to them, which galleries are provided with rocks and stones for the defence and protection of the place. There are some fifty houses in this village, each about fifty or more paces in length, and twelve or fifteen in width, built completely of wood and covered in and bordered up with large pieces of the bark and rind of trees, as broad as a table, which are well and cunningly lashed after their manner. And inside these houses are many rooms and chambers; and in the middle is a large space without a floor, where they light their fire and live together in common. Afterwards the men retire to the above-mentioned quarters with their wives and children. And, furthermore, there are lofts in the upper part of their houses, where they store the corn of which they make their bread …. All their food is eaten without salt. They sleep on the bark of trees, spread out upon the ground, with old skins of wild animals over them; and of these, to wit, otters, beavers, martens, foxes, wildcats, deer, stags, and others, they make their clothing and blankets, but the greater portion of them go almost stark naked….This whole people gives itself to manual labor and to fishing merely to obtain the necessities of life; for they place no value upon the goods of this world, both because they are unacquainted with them and because they do not move from home and are not nomads like those of Canada and of Saguenay.
Cartier further describes the value the residents of Hochelaga assigned to wampum - collections of beads derived from shells strung together into intricate belts used for diplomatic, ritualistic, decorative, and gift-giving purposes that would eventually become official currency in New Netherland and New England:
The most precious article they possess in this world is esnoguy [wampum], which is as white as snow. They produce it from shells in the river …. for they consider it the most valuable article in the world.
At another point in his memoir, Cartier writes that wampum was:
the most valuable article they possess in this world; for they attach more value to it than gold or silver.
It was during this visit that Cartier gave Mount Royal, the mountain that today overlooks the city of Montreal, its name.
Cartier writes:
[I]n the middle of these fields is situated and stands the village of Hochelaga, near and adjacent to a mountain, the slopes of which are fertile and cultivated, and from the top of which one can see for a long distance. We named this mountain ‘Mount Royal.’
View from Mount Royal (Mont Royal) in 2019.
The French captain’s account also suggests that the residents of Hochelaga may have viewed the outsiders as gods with the power to heal human ailments:
[Mothers] made signs to us also to be good enough to put our hands upon their babies. After this the men made the women retire, and themselves sat down upon the ground round about us, as if we had been going to perform a miracle play. And at once several of these women came back, each with a four-cornered mat, woven like tapestry, and these they spread upon the ground in the middle of the square, and made us place ourselves upon them. When this had been done, the ruler and leader of this country, whom in their language they call Agouhanna, was carried in, seated on a large deer-skin, by nine or ten men …. Who made signs to us that this was their ruler and leader. This Agouhanna, who was some fifty years of age, was in no way better dressed than the others except that he wore about his head for a crown a sort of red band made of hedgehog’s skin. This leader was completely paralyzed and deprived of the use of his limbs. When he had saluted the captain and his men, by making signs which clearly meant they were very welcome, he showed his arms and legs to the captain motioning him to be good enough to touch them, as if he thereby expected to be cured and healed. On this the captain set about rubbing his arms and legs with his hands. Thereupon this Agouhanna took the band of cloth he was wearing as a crown and presented it to the captain. And at once many sick persons, some blind, others with but one eye, others lame or impotent and others again so extremely old they their eyelids hung down to their cheeks, were brought in and set down or laid out near the captain, in order that he might lay his hands upon them, so that one would have though Christ had come down to earth to heal them.
Return to “Canada”
Cartier and his crew would set sail back to Canada on the 5th of October and arrived on the 11th.
But it would not be a happy return: by now the lack of vitamin C in the crew’s diet meant that scurvy was setting in and would soon ravage the unit.
Cartier conveys the gruesome details:
The sickness broke out among us accompanied by most marvelous and extraordinary symptoms; for some lost all their strength, their legs became swollen and inflamed, while the sinews contracted and turned as black as coal. In other cases the legs were found blotched with purple-colored blood. Then the disease would mount to the hips, thighs, shoulders, arms, and neck. And all had their mouths so tainted that the gums rotted away down to the roots of the teeth, which nearly all fell out. The disease spread among the three ships to such an extent that, in the middle of February, of the 110 men forming our company, there were not ten in good health so that no one could aid the other.
Faced with the bleak situation, the captain turned to the religion that he had promulgated among the natives:
Our captain, seeing the plight we were in and how general the disease had become, gave orders for all to pray and to make orisons, and had an image and figure of the Virgin Mary carried across the ice and snow and placed against a tree …. and issued an order that on the following Sunday, mass should be said at that spot.
Fortunately for the ailing crew, Cartier came to learn that the Stadaconans used the bark and leaves of a certain type of tree, which they called Annedda, as a cure for a wide range of maladies.
The knowledge would save the lives of most of the crew, though 25 would perish before the cure was found.
Once rid of the disease, the crew prepared to return to France.
And, once again, before returning to France Cartier would devise a plot to kidnap Dom Agaya and Taignoagny and carry them across the Atlantic.
And this time, Cartier also planned to capture the chief of Stadacona, Donnacona.
Cartier writes:
And that day [May 3, 1536] about noon several persons arrived from Stadacona, both men, women, and children, who told us that Donnacona with Taignoagny, Dom Agaya, and the rest of their party were on their way, which pleased us, as we were in hopes of being able to capture them. They arrived about two o’clock in the afternoon …. Soon after [Donnacona] entered the fort in company with the captain, whereupon Taignoagny immediately rushed in to make him go out again. Seeing there was no other chance, our captain proceeded to call his men to seize them. At this they rushed fourth and laid hands upon the leader and the others whose capture had been decided upon. The Canadians, beholding this, began to flee and scamper off like sheep before wolves.
Soon after the abduction, the crew set sail for France, arriving at Saint-Malo on July 16, 1536.
The Stadaconans in France
A September 1538 order from King Francis I granted Cartier additional funds for the expense of housing the “savages” he had kidnapped from Stadacona:
We …. order that …. you pay, give, and deliver in ready money to our dear and beloved Jacques Cartier …. the sum of fifty écus soleil worth at 45 sous each 111 livres 10 sous, for …. what may be owing him for his wages and fees and for the food and upkeep of a certain number of savage people whom he has fed and kept at our order for two years now.
A letter written between Cartier’s second and third voyages also reveals to us that Cartier’s captives were baptized in France:
On this day of Our Lady the 25th of March in the year 1538 were baptized three male savages from the parts of Canada, taken in the said country by the worthy man Jacques Cartier.
Third Voyage, Attempt to Establish a Colony (1541-1542)
In October of 1540, a commission was issued for a third voyage.
This third voyage had two explicit goals not outlined in the commission for his second voyage.
One was the proselytization of the natives:
Since, desiring to learn of and be informed about several countries that are said to be uninhabited, and others to be possessed by savage people living without knowledge of god and without the use of reason, we had some time ago sent at great expense and outlay of money for discovery to be made in the said countries by several good pilots …. who had brought to us from those countries various men whom we have kept for a long time in our kingdom, having them instructed in the love and fear of God and his holy law and Christian doctrine in the intention of having them taken back to the said countries in the company of a number of our willing subjects, in order to more easily lead the other peoples of those countries to believe in our holy faith. And among them we had sent there our dear and beloved Jacques Cartier, who had discovered a great country in the lands of Canada and Hochelaga.
We have considered and deliberated sending the said Cartier back to the said countries of Canada and Hochelaga and as far as the land of Saguenay, if he is able to touch land there …. to frequent the said peoples of those countries and live with them, if necessary, in order better to arrive at our said intention and to do something that is pleasing to God our creator and redeemer and that will be to the exaltation of his holy and sacred name and of our mother the holy Catholic Church, of which we are called the eldest son.
We …. establish … [Jacques Cartier] captain general and master pilot of all the ships and other seagoing vessels commissioned by us to be conducted on the said enterprise.
The other new goal laid out in Cartier’s third commission was the establishment of a permanent colony.
To govern this new dominion in his absence, King Francis I appointed Jean-François Roberval lieutenant general of New France.
Roberval’s commission reads:
We have …. deliberated sending back to the said countries of Canada and Hochelaga and other circumjacent …. uninhabited or not possessed and ruled by any Christian princes, a certain number of gentlemen our subjects and others, soldiers and commoners, of each sex and of the liberal and applied arts, to penetrate farther into the said countries and as far as the land of Saguenay and all the other countries mentioned above, to live in them with the said foreign peoples, if that is possible, and to dwell in the said lands and countries, build and create towns and forts, temples and churches for the communication of our holy Catholic faith and Christian doctrine to constitute and establish laws in our name, along with officers of justice, to make them live in law and order and in the fear and love of god, so as better to succeed in our intention and to do something pleasing to god, our creator, saviour, and redeemer, and which will be to the sanctification of his holy name and the extension of our Christian faith and growth of our mother the holy Catholic Church, of which we are said to be and are called the eldest son.
We .... establish [Jean-François Roberval] …… our lieutenant general, head, leader, and captain of the said enterprise.
We have given … our said lieutenant general …. commission to …. bring them [the foreign countries] into our possession, through friendly means or amicable arrangements, if possible, and through force of arms, violence, and all other hostile means, to attack towns, fortresses, and habitations and to build and erect or have built and erected others in the said countries and to install inhabitants in them.
It also gave him the authority to govern in King Francis’ stead:
We …. give to our said lieutenant general …. Authority …. To create, constitute, establish, dismiss, and remove from office captains, justiciaries, and in general all other officers as will seem good to him in our name and as will seem to him to be necessary for the maintenance, conquest, and defence of the said countries and to attract the peoples of them to the knowledge of love of god, and to bring them under and keep in our obedience.
We have in addition given …. full power and authority to our said lieutenant to give of those lands that he will have been able to acquire for us on this voyage, as it will seem to him to be to our utility and profit, and therewith to give them a lease on them, to be held, possessed, and enjoyed by them, their successors and rightful claimants, in perpetuity with all rights of property.
And because we cannot have sufficient knowledge of the said foreign countries and peoples to specify further the power that we should desire to give our said lieutenant general in this manner, to attract them to the knowledge of god and to bring them into our obedience, if that can be done, and to rule and govern them according to our desire and intention and others of our said army and associated with it, for this reason we desire, intend, and choose that the specifications that we have declared above may in no way derogate from the general power that we have given …. to our said lieutenant.
Cartier would also be part of the French expansionist effort and would set sail a few months before Roberval.
He would arrive at the site in August of 1541 and attempt to establish a French colony at Charlesbourg-Royal (located in the present-day Cap-Rouge neighborhood of Quebec City).
A plaque marking the location of Charlesbourg-Royal, the first French attempt to establish a colony on the St. Lawrence River.
The combination of an attack on the settlement by the St. Lawrence Iroquois – which resulted in 35 deaths – soon after its establishment and a harsh Canadian winter took a toll on the nascent colony.
Cartier would abandon the incipient outpost in the spring of 1542.
Hoping to reduce the sting of the colonial failure at Charlesbourg-Royal, the navigator would carry home what he believed to be valuable Canadian diamonds, later revealed to be quartz and pyrites.
Roberval arrived later that year with more settlers, but he too would abandon the fledgling encampment in short-order.
By any metric then, the first French attempt at a colony on the St. Lawrence was an abject failure.
Cartier would live out the remainder of his life in France, where he died on September 1, 1557.
Several decades would pass before France established a lasting colony on the St. Lawrence in 1608: Quebec City.
Cartier’s Legacy in Present-Day Canada
Cartier had a checkered track-record in the St. Lawrence region.
He was an exceptional navigator who successfully crossed the Atlantic on three separate occasions using the rickety wooden vessels of the age, vessels we wouldn’t consider so sea-worthy today (though he and his scurvy-stricken crew may not have made it home from the second journey if he had not fortuitously learned that the natives had a cure for the disease).
And his expeditions provided Europe with insights into the geography, demographics, and ecology of a region it had hitherto not charted.
But he was also unscrupulous in his dealings with the region’s natives, on several occasions kidnapping Stadaconans and dragging them along on his voyages.
And even when evaluated by the amoral metrics of imperialism, his attempt to spearhead the establishment of a French colony on the St. Lawrence failed after a single winter.
Nevertheless, today Cartier’s name is memorialized by Canadian bridges, public squares, and streets.
The Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Canada, which spans the St. Lawrence River.
Place Jacques-Cartier, a public square in Montreal, Canada.
Footnote 1
Referring to an offering of food from the people of Hochelaga, Cartier writes:
But as these provisions were not to our taste and had no savor of salt, we thanked them, making signs that we were in no need of refreshment.
On another occasion, describing the Stadaconans he met at Gaspe Harbour, he makes note that
They never eat anything that has a taste of salt in it.
On a third occasion, while documenting his first impressions of the village of Hochelaga, how the village was laid out, the importance its residents assigned to wampum, the local clothing, and other insights into this society, Cartier made sure to note:
All their food is eaten without salt.
Footnote 2
It’s often suggested that Cartier mistakenly believed that kanata or Canada was the local name for Stadacona. However, Voyages seems to indicate that he was aware that the word meant town:
They [the natives] call a town Canada.
It seems, therefore, that he made a conscience decision to begin using the word to refer to the region, knowing its original meaning was more generally referring to any town.
Written By: Aiden Singh Published: July 28, 2020 Sources