Jacques Cartier

Who is Jacques Cartier?

Jacques Cartier was a French navigator and explorer from Saint-Malo in Brittany, best remembered for opening the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River to French exploration during three voyages between 1534 and 1542 under the patronage of King Francis I. In June 1536, sailing home from his second voyage into the interior of North America, Cartier and his crew passed a small cluster of rocky islands off the southern coast of Newfoundland. He recorded them in his ship's journal as the "Islands of Saint-Pierre," the earliest documented European name for the archipelago that later became Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, and used the sheltered anchorage there before continuing home to France. Although Cartier never settled or governed the islands himself, his written account is the founding document of their recorded history, and French, Breton, Norman, and Basque fishermen soon followed the routes he had charted to work the rich cod grounds nearby, beginning the fishing settlement that endures on the archipelago today.

Sources: Jacques Cartier, ship's journal / "Relation originale du voyage de Jacques Cartier au Canada en 1534" (16th century) · Encyclopædia Britannica, "Jacques Cartier" · Adventure Canada, "A Brief History of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon"