Pioneers in Canada

s Discovery of

America we do not yet know, any more than we can determine the route by which they travelled from Asia. Curiously enough, the oldest traces of man as yet discovered in the New World are not only in South America, but in the south-eastern parts of South America. Although the most obvious recent land connection between the Old and New Worlds is the Aleutian chain of islands connecting Kamschatka with Alaska, the ethnologist is occasionally led to think by certain evidence th

eoples of northern Europe do not arise (we believe) from any ancient colonization of America from western or northern Europe, but mainly from the fact that the North-Am

Asia Minor, but from the fourth century of the Christian era onwards they began to cross over to England and Scotland. At the same time they took more complete possession of Scandinavia, driving north before their advance the more primitive peoples like the Lapps and Finns, who were allied to the stock from which arose both the Eskimo and the Amerindian.[1] All this time the Goths and Scandinavians were either learning ideas of navigation from the Romans of the Mediterranean or the Greeks of the Black Sea, or they were inventing for the

erable portions of it are quite habitable. It is not almost entirely covered with ice, as Greenland is; in fact, Iceland should be called Greenland (from the large extent

Greenland rises abruptly from the sea-coast to altitudes of from 5000 to 11,000 ft.-this discovery was of small use to the early Norwegians or their Iceland colony. After it was governed by the kingdom of Norway in the thirteenth century, the Norse colonization of south-west Greenland faded away under the attacks of the Eskimo, until it ceased completely in the fifteenth century. When Denmark united he

; and in this way it was supposed that their voyages extended as far as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but in all probability they reached no farther than Newfoundland and Nova Scoti

of their discoveries. Their colonies on the coasts of Nova Scotia ("Vinland") and Newfoundland ("Estotiland") were attacked probably by Eskimos, at any rate by a short, t

ortunate people who lived by the seashore, and could get it fresh whenever they liked, but among those who lived at a distance inland, and were still required to fast when the Church so directed. Of course in many parts of Europe they could get freshwater fish from the rivers or lakes. But the supply was not equal to the demand; and fish sent up from the seacoast soon went bad, so that the plan of salting and curing fish was adopted. The Norsemen found it a paying business to fish industriously in the seas round Iceland, Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, salt and cure the fish, and then carry it to more southern countries, where they exchanged it against wine, oil, clothi

were based on better evidence, such as the discovery on the coasts of the Azores archipelago, Madeira, and Portugal of strange seeds, tree trunks, objects of human workmanship,

England and offered himself to King Henry VII as a discoverer of new lands across the ocean. At first he was employed at Copenhagen to settle fishery quarrels about Iceland,

of fifteen mariners. Cabot, with his two sons, Luis and Sancio, sailed for Ireland and the unknown West in May, 1497, and, after a sea voyage quite as wonderful as that of Columbus, reached the coast of Cape Breton Island (or "the New Isle", as it was first named[6]) on June 24, 1

short of provisions, he turned the prow of the Matthew eastward, and reached Bristol once more about August 6, and London on August 10, 1497, with his report to King Henry VII, who rewarded him with a donation of ￡10. He was further granted a pension of ￡20 a year (which he only drew for two years, probably because he died after returning fr

he course followed lay much farther to the north, and brought the little sailing vessels amongst the icebergs, ice floes, polar bears, and stormy seas of Greenland and Labrador. Commercially the voyage was a failure, almost a disaster. The ships returned singly, and after a considerable interval of time. Nevertheless, some o

Island, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Delaware. They must have got as far south as the State of Delaware (according to Sebastian Cabot, their southern limit was lat. 38°), because in 1505 they were able to bring back parr

dge that the ships from France were returning every autumn with great supplies of fish cured and salted; for an adequate supply of salt fish was becoming a matter of great importance to the markets of western Europe. In 1527 Henry VIII sent two ships under the command of John Rut to explore the North-American coast, and Captain Rut seems to have

ngs, and Portuguese; and after 1444 the Azores began to prove very useful to the sea adventurers of this wonderful fifteenth century, as they became a shelter and a place of call for fresh water and provisions almost in the middle of the Atlantic, 800 to 1000 miles due west of Portugal. Portugue

o make paper for British books and newspapers. He then sailed along the coast of Labrador,[11] and thence crossed over to Greenland, the southern half of which he mapped with fair accuracy. His records of this voyage take particular note of the great icebergs off the coast of Greenland. His men were surprised to find that sea water frozen becomes perfectly fresh-all the salt is left out in the process. So that his two ships could supply themselves with fresh water of the purest, by hacking ic

for the Spanish Crown. They did not so much mind sharing it, along the line agreed upon in the Treaty of Tordesillas, with the Portuguese, but the ingress of the English and French infuriated them. The Basque people of the north-east corner of Spain were a hardy seafaring folk, especially bold in the pursuit of whales in the Bay of Biscay, and eager to take a share in the salt-fish trade. This desire took them in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to Ireland and Iceland. They began to fish off the Newfoundland coasts perhaps as early as 1525. About this time also the Emperor Charles V, King of

h he named the River of Deer), a title which sticks to the locality-in Deer Island-at the present day. But this being no opening of a broad strait, he passed on into the Bay of Fundy (from Portuguese word, Fundo, the bottom of a sack or passage), explored its two terminal gulfs, then returned along the coast of Nova Scotia,[13] past Cape Sable, and so

ce. Newfoundland was a "very cold and savage land", and Gomez decided it was no use prosecuting any farther his enquiry as

a he kidnapped natives, and eventually returned to Spain

sheries. In 1508 a Norman named Aubert was sent out by Jean Ango-a great merchant of Dieppe of that day-to found a colony in Newfoundland. Aubert failed to do this, but he captured and brought away at least seven of the natives, no doubt of the Beothik tribe, from Newfoundland to Rouen, with their canoe, clothing, and weapons. A good many ships also went out from La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and took part in the fishing of

work in this direction did not lead directly to the creation of the French colony of Canada, because, when he returned from America, Francis I was at war with Spain, and could pay no attention to Verrazano's projects. His voyage is worth recording in the present volume only for these two reasons: he certainly put it into the minds of French people that they might found an empire in North America; and he inspired geographers for another hundred years with the false idea that the great Nort

Newfoundland, Columbus the Spaniards to Central and South America, and Amerigo Vespucci showed the Portuguese the way

are now about 110,000,000 white Americans of European origin and 24,000,000 negroes and negroids. The total approximate "Amerindian" or aboriginal population of the New

the ancient Peruvians are said to have used mat sails in their canoes. But the northern Amerindians had g

Nowadays they are known as the Fox Grapes (Vitis vulpina), the Frost Grape (V. cordifolia), the V. aestivalis, the V. labruska, &c. The fruit of the Fox Grape is dark purple, with a very dusky skin and a musky flavour. The Frost Grape has a very small berry, which is

Eastern Eskimo na

nobleman who owed joint fealty to the kings of Norway and Scotland. Sinclair was so impressed with the

n which advances so prominently into the Atlantic was believed to be at first the great unknown "New Island" of Irish and English legends-legends based on the Norse discoveries of the eleventh century. Cape Br

stened to the voices of Cabot's little company (of Bristol mariners) it was the first faint whisper of the mi

nge parrakeet still found in the south-eastern States of North Am

nd the mainland of Venezuela (off which he notes that he met an English sailing vessel, and this as early as 1499!), and then joined the first exploring voyage of the Portuguese to Brazil. He returned to Europe, and in a letter to a fellow countryman at Paris, written in the late autumn of 1502, he claimed to have discovered a New World across the Ocean. His clear statement about what was really the South American Continent aroused so much enthusiasm in civilized Europe that five years afterwards the New World was called after him by a G

comes from a Latin word meaning "a small stick", because the fish were split open and held up flat to dry by m

, a serf. The Portuguese are supposed to have brought

n favour of the older English name "New Land" (Newfoundland, Terra N

e British Government. It was at first included with New Brunswick under the

OF CO