Age Of Exploration

Explorers for France set out across the ocean, not prepared for the reality of what they had to face.

Jacques Cartier led three voyages from 1534-42. His attempts at settlement failed.

The old rival to the French, namely the English, were sending their own explorers. Martin Frobisher sailed into the Arctic in this period, seeking what would come to be called the Northwest Passage.

He thought he found gold. He was wrong. He sent Inuit captives back to England as part of his spoils.

One sample of his ore is in this display case.

An explorer who had a very different perspective on life in the New World was Samuel de Champlain, the Father of New France.

Time spent sailing for the Spanish to their colonies in the Caribbean opened his eyes. He didn't like how the colonists treated the natives.

Leading expeditions of explorations for the French King, Champlain would adopt a very different technique- engaging tribes in a nation-to-nation way, as equals. It succeeded where others had failed, and alliances were created because of that. If only others had learned from that example.

As a partner in alliances with First Nations people, Champlain was obliged to fight their enemies. French settlers would take part in the Post-Contact Wars alongside their allies as a result.

Diplomat, soldier, explorer- Champlain was all of these. An astrolabe is seen here, typical of his period.

The New World

 This display case features carvings of people. At bottom are two typical Inuit carvings of themselves. The figure at top is thought to be European, likely a Norseman, found at a site on Baffin Island.

Scattered through the Arctic are hints of the Vikings, whether directly there or items acquired in trade.

L'Anse aux Meadows, which confirms the Viking presence in North America, offers up physical evidence like wood chips and slag metal.

Hundreds of years later, more Europeans would follow in their path. The fall of Constantinople and the collapse of trade routes, the decline of offshore fisheries, and other factors led to countries looking to the westward ocean and what laid beyond.

Fishing and whaling became a big thing off the East Coast after the travels of Giovanni Caboto, sailing for the English as John Cabot in 1497 brought back stories of the potential wealth of the new world.

Some very different ways of fishing can be seen in these artifacts, from hooks to jars.

Indigenous peoples and Europeans had very different initial impressions of each other.

This is a model of the galleon San Juan de Pasajes, which sank off Newfoundland in the 1500s.

Whaling was a hard life.

For the First Peoples of North America, nothing would ever be the same again.

First Contact

 More today from the display and video of Nuvumiutaq, the Arctic Bay kayaker whose replica stands here in the Museum.

More artifacts of the Iroquois are found here.

By 1500, the Iroquois had formed a powerful confederacy of alliances amongst themselves.

First contact by Europeans was confirmed to have happened a thousand years ago, as Norse explorers made landfall in North America. This has been proven without a doubt at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, and there's sufficient evidence through a wide range of eastern Canada of Viking presence.

Skraeling Island in the Arctic is one of the places where evidence of the Vikings can be found. We'll pick up here tomorrow.

Nuvumiutaq

 Pottery came into Canada from the south 3000 years ago, changing things for tribes in the eastern woodlands.

Agriculture would dramatically change everything, making it possible to go from semi-nomadic to living in permanent villages.

Some of the tools of that trade.

Some of the products made from corn- with one exception. No, I don't have the answer.

A fascinating display looks at an Inuit man who has been given the name Nuvumiutaq. Museum archaeologists and the community of Arctic Bay collaborated on the project. Nearly eight hundred years ago, a hunter and kayaker died and was buried with his tools. Reproductions of the tools are found in this display.

And the remains were scanned, with a physical recreation being the result standing here, with clothing made by local women in the way he would have known.