Often assumed to be an extinct volcano, Mount Royal is in fact an attempted volcano formed 125 million years ago when the lava in the earth’s core tried to burst through the Canadian Shield. The resulting bubble is neither part of the Laurentian Mountains to the northwest nor the Adirondacks to the south, but one of […]
Tag: Samuel de Champlain
At Mont-Royal, Jacques Cartier
On Sunday 3 October 1535, Jacques Cartier, having been guided down the St Lawrence River by the Iroquois, arrived at the settlement of Hochelaga. Below is his account of the settlement and his naming of the hill he found there. By the time Champlain arrived on what is now the island of Montreal in 1611, […]
Approaching St Laurent, The Immortality of Big Business
Bite Size Canada has a great post on Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, in August 1583, claimed Newfoundland for England. Great because it gives an insight into the mentality of the explorers who headed up the ventures as well as one of their major problems. As the post tells it, Sir Humphrey’s ship went down on […]
From Champlain’s Unemployment, A Career Change, A Dragon, and Acadie
One of the questions I am often asked about this project is “Why?” or, less bluntly, “What got you started?” Obviously, there is my curiousity in Canadian history and my love of the metro, but the more prosaic and practical answer is that when I started I was unemployed and, as I was just arrived […]
Acadie
Acadie was the name used by the French to refer to the Atlantic coastal area which now includes Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and parts of Quebec and Maine. Inhabited by the Mi’kmaq and Algonquin, the first European settlement was established in 1604 on the Ile Ste Croix, now Dochet Island in Maine. […]
