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1728
Sieur de La Verendrye
The Discoverers
The story of exploration and discovery in Canada goes back only a few
hundred years, but historians believe that the first people to live in North
America came from Asia many thousands of years ago. They are reasonably
certain that the ancestors of the North American Indians journeyed from
Siberia to Alaska and travelled along definite routes into the interior of the
continent.
Knowledge of the first European to visit North America is largely drawn
from Icelandic tales. It is said the Bjarni Herjulfson caught a glimpse of the
coast while making a voyage from Iceland to Greenland in 986 A.D. Another
tale relates that Leif Ericson sailed west from Iceland in the year 1000 and
discovered a land rich in vines and timber. Attempts to settle this new land
were unsuccessful, however, and the mists of the Atlantic closed over the
continent for another five hundred years.
John Cabot, a native of Genoa, Italy, in the employ of King Henry VII
of England, sailed toward the west in 1497. He was the first European to
visit Canada. The most important result of Cabot’s voyages was his discovery
of the fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland which soon attracted
sailors from many nations.
It was left to Jacques Cartier, a Breton in the service of King Francis I of
France, to make the first real voyage of exploration to that part of North
America which was later to become Canada. Cartier sailed on his first voyage
to the new world from St. Malo in 1534, and is believed to have first sighted
land near Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland. He made careful study of the
coasts of both Newfoundland and Labrador, and discovered the Strait of
Belle Isle, Prince Edward Island, the Bay of Chaleur, and the Island of Anti-
costi. On his second voyage the following year, Cartier again passed through
the Strait of Belle Isle and into the St. Lawrence River. Pushing west, he
reached the Isle of Orleans, and finally the Indian village of Stadacona which
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