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In 1533, when Jacques Cartier received his commission to lead an exploring expedition westward, the merchants of St Malo, fearing that the manning of his vessels would rob them of sailors necessary for success in the fishing trade, tried to thwart him in every possible way. He was determined to go into the vague, unknown regions beyond the Strait of Chateau Bay (passer le destroict de la baye de Chasteaulx) and he was not to be thwarted. By the spring of 1534 his ships were ready and his crews collected. He was now in his prime, forty-three years old, bronzed by winds and suns on many seas, hardened by years of buffeting tempests, clear-eyed, clear-visioned, a man to inspire affection and command obedience. Judging from the names that he gave localities visited and sighted, he was, too, a man of imagination and deep religious feeling. When his ships, each of sixty tons burden, were fitted out for the voyage, the crews of sixty-one men, all told, took the oath of obedience before Charles de Moüy, the vice-admiral of France. On April 20 everything was ready, and Cartier set sail and swept out of the ancient harbour of St Malo on what was to be the most important exploring expedition to North America yet taken by a French navigator.

Cartier, who was familiar with the course to the New World, sailed with a favouring breeze direct to Newfoundland, arriving at Cape Bonavista on May 10. Here impenetrable ice retarded the onward journey, and the vessels were forced to sail southward for five leagues to a sheltered harbour which they named St Catherine (now Catalina). Ten days were spent in St Catherine Harbour, busy days occupied in laying in a supply of wood and fresh water and fitting out the longboats. On May 21 the voyageurs set sail and started northward towards Isle des Oiseaux (Funk Island), where they once more encountered vast fields of broken ice. On the island, on the ice about it, in the water, and screaming around them in the air they saw an incredible number of sea-birds. So thick were they on the land, that to the mariners they seemed ‘to have been brought and sown expressly on the island which was about a league in circuit.’ They filled a boat with these birds as quickly as if ‘they were loading stones,’ and ‘salted down ten casks full besides what they ate fresh.’ Cartier speaks of them as ‘apponatz, godez and margeaulx,’ which, from his description, were evidently great auks, long since extinct, guillemots and gannets. He makes no mention of gulls, but possibly thought it unnecessary to call attention to birds so familiar to Europeans. He describes another bird which was undoubtedly the razor-billed auk. Here, too, were seen polar bears, which had evidently swum from the mainland leagues away to prey on the birds. One was as big as a cow and white as a swan. As Cartier sailed from Isle des Oiseaux a bear followed his ship. Boats gave chase and captured it, and its flesh proved ‘as delicate as a two-year-old heifer.’

On May 27 the entrance to the Strait of Belle Isle, known to Cartier as Chateau Bay, was reached, but once more the vessels met ice and experienced stormy weather. They were forced to seek shelter in Rapont Harbour (the present Quirpon). Here they remained till June 9, when they once more set sail westward for la grande baye. They passed Blanc Sablon, named from its white sand, situated at the present boundary between the Province of Quebec and the Labrador coast, and on June 10 reached Port Brest (now Old Fort), a well-known harbour, the name proving that French sailors had already visited these waters and that the strait had been discovered before Cartier ventured through it. Boats were sent out to explore the coast westward. These entered a number of harbours: St Servan, named after a suburb of St Malo, the river St Jacques and St Antoine, and Jacques Cartier Harbour, evidently named by the crew in honour of their leader. This latter place is now known as Cumberland Bay and was Cartier’s farthest on the Labrador coast on his westward voyage.

At St Jacques River the explorers met a large fishing vessel from La Rochelle, which had been seeking Port Brest but had missed it through the ignorance of its pilot. This seems to be evidence that mariners had passed through the Strait of Chateau Bay before Cartier. At St Servan (now Lobster Bay) a cross was set up, and the bleak region, ‘dry and half dead,’ nourishing only moss and stunted thorns, which Cartier thought must have been the land allotted to Cain, was claimed in the name of the king of France.

While on the Labrador coast Cartier met natives. They probably belonged to some wandering tribe from the region south of Hudson Bay, possibly Montagnais of Algonquin stock.^[1] They were ‘men of fine stature,’ but ‘indomitable and savage.’ They wore ‘their hair on the top of their heads like a bunch of hay, passing through it a small piece of wood or something similar ... and they also attached there some feathers.’ They wore skins and ‘painted themselves with certain red colours.’

The desolate appearance of the country so far explored made Cartier despair of success by continuing along its shores, and his boats returned to the ships at Port Brest; sail was set, and on June 15 a southern course was taken to explore the land seen on the south side of the strait. Cape Riche, the first point reached, from its appearance was named Cap Double. For ten days a southern course was kept within sight of land, save when for several days they were driven to sea by a tempest. Names were given to bays and capes and mountains in honour of some saint, or from striking characteristics in their appearance. Granche (Grange) Mountains were so called because of the resemblance of one of them to a farm-building. Islands in the bay, called by the explorer St Julien, were named Les Coulombiers from their resemblance to pigeon-houses. Cap Royal (Bear Head), Cape de Latte (Cape Cormorant), Cap St Jean were all sighted and named as the vessels sailed southward. Off Cape Anguille the course was changed westward, and three islands ‘as full of birds as a meadow is of grass’ were reached. These were the Bird Rocks; there are now only two, but a shallow shows where the third, noted by Cartier, was situated. So plentiful were the wild fowl—auks, guillemots and gannets—that Cartier declares that his crew could have filled thirty boats with them in an hour. The islands were named Isles aux Margaulx. Five leagues farther west the explorers came upon an island two leagues long and three wide, and so fertile that it seemed to them a paradise after the bleak regions they had so lately left. Cartier named it Brion Island in honour of Philippe de Chabot, Sieur de Brion, Admiral of France. Here were large trees, ‘peas as fine as any in Brittany, currants, strawberries, roses, grapes and sweet flowers and grasses.’ A strange animal frequented this island ‘as large as an ox, having tusks like an elephant, and which lives in the sea.’ Cartier enthusiastically declares that ‘one arpent of Brion Island is worth the whole of the New Land.’ While at this spot Cartier conjectured that there might be some passage between the Terre Neuve (Newfoundland) and la Terre des Bretons (Cape Breton). On his return to France from his second voyage he was to sail through Cabot Strait, and thus prove definitely the existence of this passage. When the vessels left Brion Island their course was shaped to the west-south-west. By June 26 North Cape, Great Magdalen Island, was sighted. The western shore of this famous group, the key of the gulf, was examined and the southern coast skirted, and then a south-west course was taken into the unknown; but the crews were soon gladdened by the sight of thickly wooded land with shores and banks of red earth. The island now known as Prince Edward had been reached somewhere near Richmond or Malpeque Bay. A boat attempted to go ashore at the Rivière de Barcques (river of Boats), where several canoes were seen, but a storm forced it to return to the ships. Point North was skirted and the Straits of Northumberland entered. Cartier penetrated the strait until he came within sight of Cape Tormentine, which jutted so far towards the curving island as to give the land the appearance of being continuous. An unbroken wall of forest-clad land seemed to prevent further progress in the course he was taking. He believed he was in a deep bay and named the supposed bay St Lunaire, after a Breton saint whose festival fell on July 1. Cartier now crossed to the western shore, visited the mouth of the Miramichi River, skirted northward past Shippegan Island and Miscou, and then turned into a broad bay, called by the Indians Mowepaktabāāk (the Biggest Bay).

Cartier’s hopes soared high, and the southern headland at the entrance to this bay he called Cape d’Esperance—Hope Cape. The vessels crossed to the northern shore of the bay and came to anchor in la couche St Martin (now Port Daniel), while boats were sent out to examine the bay westward in the hope of discovering a passage leading indefinitely inland. The explorers, somewhat to their consternation, came upon a band of savages—Micmacs—in forty or fifty canoes. Some of these approached one of the boats in seven canoes, but the cautious Frenchmen feared them and fired several shots to warn them away. The Indians were anxious to trade, and on the following day showed by their friendly demonstrations that they had no evil designs. For a few knives and tools, gaudy apparel and trinkets, they parted with all their furs, even their clothing, so that ‘they were obliged to go back again naked.’ Cartier was greatly attracted by the climate and vegetation of the bay, and called it la Baye de Chaleur. To him the country seemed ‘warmer than Spain’ and ‘as fine a country as one would wish to see, level and smooth, ... no part too small for trees, even if sandy; and where there is a wild weed, which has an ear like that of rye and the grains like oats; there are peas as if sown and cultivated, red and white barberries, strawberries, red and white roses and other flowers of sweet and delightful perfume. There are also fine prairies, fine grasses and lakes filled with salmon.’ The low lands with high mountains in the rear checking the westward exploration of the boats told them there was no navigable river penetrating the land, and the mariners, greatly disappointed, shaped their course eastward around the Peninsula of Gaspe. On July 14 Cartier reached Gaspe Bay, and remained there until the 16th, when a fierce storm caused one of the vessels the loss of an anchor, and compelled both to go up into Gaspe Basin for shelter, where they remained until the 25th of the month. At Gaspe they met a band of Indians differing from those of the Labrador country or of Chaleur Bay. They were of Huron-Iroquois stock, and had come down to the gulf from the region about Quebec to catch mackerel. Their men, women and children were greatly attracted by the strange, bearded white men who had come in huge canoes with wide-spreading white wings.

These natives, writes Cartier, ‘can with truth be called savages, as there are no people poorer in the world.... Their whole clothing consists of a small skin with which they cover their loins; they also put old skins above and across their bodies.... They have their heads completely shaven except a lock on the top of the head, which they allow to grow as long as a horse’s tail; they tie it to their heads with small leather cords. Their dwellings are their canoes, which they turn upside down, and lie down under them on the bare ground. They eat their meat almost raw, merely warming it over coals, the same with fish.’

The Frenchmen visited their encampment, and the savages welcomed them with dancing and singing and great signs of joy. Small gifts of knives, beads and combs greatly delighted them, and ‘they lifted their hands to Heaven as they sang and danced.’ The squaws, to whom Cartier gave combs and ‘tin bells of little value,’ threw themselves ‘in a heap’ at his feet and stroked his arms and breast, their method of caressing.

At Gaspe Bay Cartier erected a cross thirty feet high, on which he fixed a shield with three fleur-de-lis in relief, above which he cut in large letters the words: VIVE LE ROY DE FRANCE. The chief or captain of the band objected to this cross, fearing that this totem was a means of laying claim to the country round about, but Cartier assured him that he intended to return to the bay, and that the cross was to serve as a guide and mark for his vessels. He distributed more presents and the chief’s fears were laid to rest.

Preparations for sailing were made on July 25. Before leaving Gaspe Bay the French induced some of the Indians to come on board, among them two sons of the chief. These youths, Taignoagny and Domagaya, were induced to sail away with the Frenchmen. Some historians have accused Cartier of kidnapping them; but they were willing captives. ‘We dressed each,’ says Cartier, ‘in a shift, a coloured sack [waist] and a red capo, and we placed a brass chain around the neck of each, which pleased them immensely.’ The skins they had cast off they gave to their comrades, who were no doubt envious of the honour done Taignoagny and Domagaya.

On rounding Gaspe Peninsula Cartier made the same mistake that he had previously made with regard to the Straits of Northumberland. He thought the water between the mainland and Anticosti Island (named by him l’Assumption) a bay, and so he crossed to the island and skirted its shores eastward until he reached the extreme eastern end, then turned westward, and on August 1 caught sight of the Quebec shore. He proceeded along Anticosti as far as North Point. Contrary winds and the swift current retarded the progress of his vessels, and he decided not to pass the strait he had named St Peter’s. He knew the Atlantic well. The autumn gales would soon be raging, and after consulting with his men he decided to return to France. On August 9 the vessels were back at Blanc Sablon. On the 15th they sailed through the Strait of Chateau Bay, and after a stormy voyage reached St Malo on September 5.

Cartier was no doubt disappointed, but he had done a great work. He had explored the Gulf of St Lawrence most thoroughly, and had looked into the mouth of the River St Lawrence. He had no gold or spices or silks to bring back with him, but he had tales of fertile lands, of seas teeming with fish, and of forests rich with timber. From the chief’s sons he had no doubt learned of the mighty Hochelaga—the Indian name for the St Lawrence—of the Great Lakes in which it had its source, and of the mythical province of Saguenay which was for many years to be an ignis fatuus for French explorers.

[1]	S. E. Dawson, The St Lawrence Basin, p. 131.