CARTIER (keir-iyal JACQUES (1491-1557). There is scarcely a promontory or bend along the lower reaches of the St. Lawrence River that does not carry memories of the bold French sea-captain, Jacques Cartier, who in the early years of the 16th century discovered and explored that great stream and opened Canada to white settlement. But Cartier was a modest man and wrote nothing of himself. Little is now known of his early years, beyond the fact that he was a hardy Norman sailor. He first appears in historical records as the master of a tiny sailing vessel which set out from St. Malo on April 20, 1534, to seek a passage to the East Indies around North America. He reached Newfoundland on May 10, passed through the strait of Belleisle, and landed at several points inside the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Struck by the mildness of the summer climate, and by the abundance of flowers and fruits growing on these shores, Cartier entered into friendly trade with the Indians of these regions. It is said that some of these simple-minded savages stripped themselves of all their winter furs in exchange for a few beads and hatchets, which they believed were magic gifts from the strange " white gods." Two of the Indians re turned to France with Cartier in the autumn of 1534, and he gave such glowing accounts of the new land that he obtained from several wealthy patrons three ships for his next voyage, This began in May 1536, and led him far up the St. Lawrence. He camped on the north shore at the Indian station of Stadacona, near the site of modern Quebec, where he found a paradise of trees and vines and fertile soil.
His men wanted to remain there, but Cartier had heard of greater wonders farther upstream, so he took one of his ships and two large Indian boats and pushed on to where the St. Lawrence widens out into Lake St. Peter. There the shoaling water forced him to abandon the ship, and he proceeded in the boats as far as the big fortified Indian village of Hochelaga, situated on an island at the point where the Ottawa River flows in from the north. Here he found a high hill, from which he surveyed the vast stretches to the westward. In the name of the King of France he took possession of this great land and called the hill Montreal (Royal Mount.) The exploring party returned to Stadacona for the winter, and there 25 of Cartier's men died of scurvy. The following spring he returned to France.
What Cartier chiefly sought in these voyages to the St. Lawrence was what many others were seeking in different parts of America at that time, namely, a strait or water passage through the unknown conti nent to the ocean which washed its western shores.
When he found that his way beyond Montreal was barred by rapids in the St. Lawrence River, he named these " the China Rapids," for he hoped that when they were once passed, a way to the East might there be found.
In 1541 he was sent out again by King Francis I, with five vessels, • to prepare the way for the first colonizing expedition to Canada, a task entrusted to Francois de la Roque, seigneur de Roberval. Cartier left De Roberval searching up the Ottawa River for the mythical "Kingdom of Saguenay," which the Indians had described as rich in precious stones. In 1543 Cartier was sent on his fourth voyage, to bring back De Roberval, who had failed in his mission.
The remainder of Cartier's life was spent quietly in St. Malo, where he died on Sept. 1, 1557.