In 1576, Martin Frobisher, English adventurer and privateer, in the service of a private trading company, sailed west of Greenland in search of the northwest passage. His apparent discovery of gold bearing minerals on Baffin Island, which proved false, led to two further expeditions into the Arctic in 1577 and 1578. Depiction of a hostile encounter with Inuit in 1577 provides the first pictorial evidence of the flying of a flag of sovereignty over part of Canada ΓÇô the cross of St. George with Queen ElizabethΓÇÖs arms in the centre.
