History of Canada

Precontact aboriginal history

North America’s first humans migrated from Asia, presumably over a now-submerged land bridge from Siberia to Alaska sometime about 12,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age; it has also been argued, however, that some people arrived earlier, possibly up to 60,000 years ago. Unknown numbers of people moved southward along the western edge of the North American ice cap. The presence of the ice, which for a time virtually covered Canada, makes it reasonable to assume that the southern reaches of North America were settled before Canada, and that the Inuit who live in Canada’s Arctic regions today were the last of the aboriginal peoples to reach Canada. There is general agreement that Native American peoples are related to Asian peoples and that the closest resemblances are between North American Arctic peoples and their counterparts in Siberia.

Although there are no written records detailing the history of Canada’s Indigenous societies prior to the first contact with Europeans, archaeological evidence and oral traditions give a reasonably complete picture of the precontact period. There were 12 major language groups among the peoples living in what is now Canada: Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Athabascan, Kootenaian, Salishan, Wakashan, Tsimshian, Haidan, Tlinglit, Inuktitut, and Beothukan. Within each language group there were usually political and cultural divisions. Among the Iroquoian-speaking peoples, for example, there were two major subgroups, the Iroquois and the Huron. These subgroups were further divided. At the time of contact, the Iroquois had organized themselves into the Iroquois Confederacy, consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples. A sixth group, the Tuscarora, joined later.

Considerable variation in cultures, means of subsistence, tribal laws and customs, and philosophies of trade and intertribal relations existed in precontact Canada. The Eastern Woodland peoples, such as the Huron, Iroquois, Petun, Neutral, Ottawa, and Algonquin, created a mixed subsistence economy of hunting and agriculture supplemented by trade. Semipermanent villages were built, trails were cleared between villages, fields were cultivated, and game was hunted. There was a high level of political organization among some of these peoples: both the Huron and the Iroquois formed political and religious confederacies and created extensive trade systems and political alliances with other groups. Peoples living in the far north do not appear to have formed larger political communities, while those of the west coast and the Eastern Woodlands formed sophisticated political, social, and cultural institutions. Climate and geography undoubtedly were major factors affecting the nature of the societies that evolved in the various regions of North America. The one characteristic virtually all the groups in precontact Canada shared was that they were self-governing and politically independent.

European contact and early exploration

At the beginning of the 9th century ce, seaborne Norse invaders pushed out of the Scandinavian Peninsula to Britain, Ireland, and northern Europe. In the mid-9th century a number of Norse craft reached Iceland, where a permanent settlement was established. Near the end of the 10th century the Norse reached Greenland and ventured to the coast of North America. At L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland are the remains of what are believed to be as many as three Norse settlements. According to available evidence, the Norse settlers and the Inuit (whom the Norse called Skraeling) initially fought each other but then established a regular trade relationship. The Norse settlements were soon abandoned, probably as the Norse withdrew from Greenland.

Europeans did not return to northern North America until the Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto, known in English as John Cabot, sailed from Bristol in 1497 under a commission from the English king to search for a short route to Asia (what became known as the Northwest Passage). In that voyage and in a voyage the following year, during which Cabot died, he and his sons explored the coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly Nova Scotia and discovered that the cold northwest Atlantic waters were teeming with fish. Soon Portuguese, Spanish, and French fishing crews braved the Atlantic crossing to fish in the waters of the Grand Banks. Some began to land on the coast of Newfoundland to dry their catch before returning to Europe. Despite Cabot’s explorations, the English paid little heed to the Atlantic fishery until 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert laid claim to the lands around present-day St. John’s, probably as a base for an English fishery. The French also claimed parts of Newfoundland, primarily on the north and west coasts of the island, as bases for their own fishing endeavours. The fishery ushered in the initial period of contact between the First Nations and the Europeans. Although each was deeply suspicious of the other, a sporadic trade was conducted in scattered locations between the fishing crews and the First Nations, with the latter trading furs for iron and other manufactured goods.

Jacques Cartier

Frenchman Jacques Cartier was the first European to navigate the great entrance to Canada, the Saint Lawrence River. In 1534, in a voyage conducted with great competence, Cartier explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and claimed its shores for the French crown. In the following year Cartier ascended the river itself and visited the sites of Stadacona (modern Quebec city) and Hochelaga (Montreal). His reports were so favourable that the French king, anxious to challenge the claims of Spain in the New World, decided to set up a fortified settlement. Internal and European politics delayed the enterprise until 1541, when, under the command of Jean-François de La Rocque, sieur (lord) de Roberval, Cartier returned to Stadacona and founded Charlesbourg-Royal just northwest of Quebec. Cartier had hoped to discover precious gems and minerals, as the Spaniards had done in Mexico and Peru, but the mineral specimens he sent home were worthless; indeed, “false as a Canadian diamond” became a common French expression. Disappointed in his attempt to reach the mythical “Kingdom of Saguenay,” the reputed source of precious metals, Cartier returned to France after a severe winter, deserting Roberval, who had arrived in Newfoundland with reinforcements. Roberval also failed, and during the remainder of the century only two subsequent attempts were made at exploiting the French claim to the lands of the St. Lawrence. But the French claim remained; it had only to be made good by actual occupation.