Chapter 1 Waterway to America’s Heartland Several years after Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492 and 1493 a few other Europeans began coming to America for seasonal work They were sailors from the coast of France who spent summers fishing the shoals of Newfoundland Here the cold ocean waters teemed with cod a type of fish up to 6 feet 1 8 meters long and weighing as much as 200 pounds 91 kilograms Cod could be preserved with salt after it was caught and then dried or pickled and sold when the men returned to France Newfoundland was settled by fishermen in the early 1500s QUEBEC Jacques Cartier Passage NEWFOUNDLAND Gulf of St Lawrence 4
Codfish were numerous in the waters near Newfoundland A good summer’s catch could support a fisherman and his family for the rest of the year Soon Basque English and Portuguese fishing boats could also be seen on the Newfoundland coast The shoals of Newfoundland had so many codfish that a fisherman could just scoop them right out of the water with a bucket 5
From northwest France the shores of North America are only about 2,500 miles 4,023 kilometers away Columbus traveled almost twice that far more than 4,500 miles 7,242 kilometers to get from Spain to the Bahamas where he first landed So it is not surprising that northern Europeans such as the French found it easier to explore the shores of what is now Canada In fact 500 years before Columbus’s voyages Scandinavians known as Vikings had also visited the North American coast and even tried unsuccessfully to settle there Vikings came on ships to North America in search of supplies like timber French fishermen generally did not keep ship logs but their reports of the new land quickly reached the ears of their king François I Increasingly worried about Spain’s growing power in the Americas he sent an Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano across the sea in 1523 Verrazzano’s mission was to establish a claim to North American lands and also look for a water route to the Far East Europeans were always seeking more direct ways to reach China India and present day Indonesia where they could buy valuable trade goods such as silk and spices 6
Verrazzano’s voyage launched a short but remarkable period of harmony and cooperation between Europeans and indigenous peoples that was very different from the conflicts colonists brought to other parts of the New World The success of New France depended on water-based travel At one time New France included the mighty Mississippi River and five immense lakes which hold one-fifth of all of the fresh surface water on Earth Today these lakes Lake Superior Lake Michigan Lake Huron Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are known as the Great Lakes of the United States and Canada Giovanni da Verrazzano’s mission was to navigate the shores between Florida and Newfoundland for a passage to the Pacific Ocean Giovanni da Verrazzano 1485 1528 Verrazzano however never saw the Great Lakes or the Mississippi He reached the Atlantic coast somewhere near present-day North Carolina and sailed to Cape Breton Island northwest of Nova Scotia before turning for home Perhaps because of the region’s heavy fogs he missed the doorway to a part of America that would later be fiercely fought over by Britain and France This doorway was the Gulf of St Lawrence located on the eastern coast of what is now Canada 7
