Aboriginal peoples with distinct trading and political systems inhabited every region of Canada before its existence was known to Europeans. The Norse, who crossed from settlements in Greenland in the eleventh century, were the first Europeans to visit America but had little impact on the indigenous peoples or the subsequent history of the continent. Two factors, exploitation of the Atlantic cod fishery and the search for alternative trade routes to the Orient, led to increased contact between Western Europe and North America. John Cabot in 1497 was the first of a series of explorers to visit eastern Canadian coastal waters. In 1534 Jacques Cartier sailed beyond Newfoundland on the first of three voyages, claiming the area for France and making contact with natives. No visual record of the earliest contact survives. This later painting presents a romanticized, and highly inaccurate, impression of Cartier's discovery the following year of the RiviÅre de Canada, the St. Lawrence River. He eventually followed the river inland as far as present day QuÄbec and MontrÄal, but was disappointed with much that he found. The winter climate was severe; his "gold" and "diamond" discoveries proved fraudulent; and a later settlement failed. On each of his voyages relations were established with the Indians and furs were traded. The St. Lawrence River, Cartier's main discovery, became the centre of the French empire in America and the focus of one of two trading systems that would mark the history of the Canadian fur trade.
Courtesy: Picture Division, Public Archives of Canada (C-41995)
