Explorers

 In the late 15th century, after the collapse of the Byzantine empire, routes to the Far East became harder to travel, and Europeans sought new routes by sailing west. Their routes would take them to the Americas. Giovanni Caboto, sailing for the English as John Cabot, made first landfall in Newfoundland, a few years after Columbus blundered his way into the Caribbean and thought he was in India.

At the same time, fishing fleets, aided by improved ships, went further into the Atlantic in search of new stock, and would find it off the North American coast.

Here we have period items involved in the fishing trade.

Contrasting views: statements by Indigenous peoples and white people of their first contact with each other.

While the Spanish and Portuguese were busy carving up the world, the French and English were busy ignoring them and making their own plans- all while maintaining their centuries old rivalry. Both sent explorers west to seek answers about the new lands.

This model is the San Juan de Pasajes, a fishing galleon that sank in Red Bay in the 1500s.

What was out there was the great unknown. But it wasn't undiscovered.

Canada is the name of a country- but its origins are in an Iroquoian word meaning village or settlement, recorded by Jacques Cartier. Early French settlement would be the beginning of momentous change.

The English would send their own explorers, including Martin Frobisher, who brought back what he thought was gold. It wasn't.

The most consequential of the explorers was Samuel de Champlain, who traveled extensively and had a different mindset- establishing alliances and relationships with First Nations peoples. New France became very much his legacy.