Little Folks of North America / Stories about children living in the different parts of North America

by Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade

If you look at the map of North America, you will find that nearly the whole upper half, with the exception of Alaska, bears the name of the Dominion of Canada. Its northern shores are bathed by the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. On the east is the great Atlantic, and on the west is the stormy Pacific. The boys and girls who live in this vast country can travel for hundreds of miles along mighty rivers; they can sail on lakes so great that they may lose sight of land and grow seasick from the motion of the boat as it moves through the waves; they can climb high mountains capped with snow in the hottest summer weather; they can wander over vast prairies for days and even weeks at a time with no view of anything as far as the eye can see, save miles and miles of grass; they can lose themselves in thick forests where only wild animals and Indian hunters have ever ventured before. All these things are possible for the Canadian child without moving out of the land which he calls home.

Once upon a time, less than fifty years after Columbus discovered the New World, a brave Frenchman named Jacques Cartier left his sunny home in France, and sailed into the west. The king of France had heard of the wonderful land which Columbus had discovered, and which the Spaniards had begun to settle. He wished to have some part of it for himself, so he directed Cartier to go farther north than the Spaniards had done. When he reached a good place for a home, he was to land and set up the flag of France.

Cartier, with two ships, each of which bore sixty-one men, set out. They crossed the ocean and arrived on the coast of a large island. Its shores were still blocked with ice, although it was the month of April. To-day we know this island as Newfoundland or New-found-land. The Frenchmen were not pleased with the country, for it looked bare and rocky. When they landed, they were met by savages with red skins and black hair tied on the top of their heads, “Like a wreath of hay,” as Carter said. He was quite sure that this was not a fit place for a home; so the ships were turned northward. They soon entered a large gulf which received the name of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

On the shores of this gulf the white men were also met by Indians, whose homes were their upturned canoes. The savages wore little or no clothing; they lived on fish and flesh that was scarcely cooked; they seemed poor and very savage. The country, which was the mainland of Canada, looked pleasant, and Carter set up a tall cross and took possession of it in the name of France. He induced the Indian chief to allow his two sons to go back to France with him. Then he set sail for home, eager to tell his friends of the land he had visited.

The next year Cartier returned to Canada with a goodly company. They entered the gulf of St. Lawrence, as they had done before, but they sailed on until they came to the mouth of a wide river.

“It flows from afar off,” said the two Indians who had gone to France with Cartier, and who had returned with him. “No man has ever seen its beginning,” they continued.

“Perhaps,” thought Cartier, who had no idea how vast was the new land that he had discovered, “it is not a river. It is so broad and so deep, it may be an arm of the ocean, and if I follow it, I may find the short way to India, about which so many have dreamed.”

So he and his men kept on their way up the St. Lawrence River, stopping from time to time to admire the beautiful country and the wonderful sights that met them on every hand. Wild grape vines hung from the trees along the banks, and the delicious fruit was even now ripening. Water-fowls flew over their heads, and they got glimpses of wild animals such as they had never seen before. Most interesting of all were the little Indian villages scattered here and there along the shore.

From one of the settlements Cartier was passing, the people came out in their canoes to get a better sight of the white men, but they were afraid to come close to the ships, till Cartier’s two young Indian friends spoke to them and told them not to fear. Then they came on board and listened to the story of the visit the two Indian youths had made in France, and of the wonderful things that had happened to them. The Indians were now quite sure that the strangers meant only good to them, and that there was nothing to fear.

They hastened to bring presents to the visitors and show friendship in every way that they knew. Cartier did not stay long in the place, however. He sailed on till he came to a fine harbor beneath steep, high cliffs. An Indian village stood here. To-day it is the site of the city of Quebec.