In the footsteps of Jacques Cartier : the first trip (1/3)

After so many trips around the world, you want to change dimension? The great expeditions are made for you! Discover a French adventure, that of Jacques Cartier on the unknown lands of Canada.

Everything begins when a Genoese sailor, named Christopher Columbus, discovers the American continent on behalf of the crown of Spain. From then on, a real time trial to the New World and its wealth has begun. If the South returned to the Spanish and Portuguese, France followed the step, but in the North. To one of the most visited countries of today: Canada.

This adventure of the Kingdom of France began in 1534, when King François I gave the green light to a smart browser: a certain Jacques Cartier. Wanderlix offers you to embark on the footsteps of the famous Breton browser, following the course of its very first journey.

Asian dream

So it was said, the discovery of America in 1492 makes the various European kingdoms want to go to the conquest of the New World. All then seek a way to rally Asia by the sea, taking the direction of the West, to put their hand on Asian wealth.

Nevertheless, the Iberian kingdoms quickly understand that Christopher Columbus did not throw ink in the Indias, but on an unknown continent. As a big loser of the first conquests, France also wants to launch. Unlike the southern neighbours, the kingdom of France takes the direction of the North. But how did she know that in the North, land was waiting for her?

A secret was long kept by European fishermen. Far, far from the coasts of the Old Continent, a land and its coast were seen. This is Newfoundland. There, European fishermen discover a dynastic cod bench. This secret, Jacques Cartier knows it, since there was simply sailed, when he accompanied his father. Larger, Cartier takes off and leaves again off the Atlantic, to Brazil, then to Africa. What makes him a reputation in his hometown: Saint-Malo.

On the side of the capital, François I rebelled against Treaty of Tordesillas . But the monarch has not finished with the challenge of India, and intends to conquer new lands to fear a path to Asia. In 1524 he entrusted a Florentine, Giovanni da Verrazzano, to sail to the New World. If the browser finds America, it does not manage to fear a passage to Asia. However François I does not abandon the idea of finding this famous path.

In 1534, the Abbé du Mont-Saint-Michel introduced Jacques Cartier. After boasting his merits, the browser manages to convince François I, blinded by the promise to bring back gold. Thus, on 20 April 1534, Jacques Cartier’s journey to America began.

The dive in the Strait of Belle-Isle and the arrival in Gaspésie

Our journey, as far as we are concerned, begins in Newfoundland. An exceptional natural landscape, where the Earth is rare but where the sea is omnipresent. Like we just found the end of the world. A feeling contrary to that felt by Jacques Cartier, for whom the view of the coast is synonymous with arrival in the New World, after twenty days of navigation.

It is not a pure discovery, however, since it is the famous coastline for fishing. In fact, Cartier crossed a boat from La Rochelle to fish cod. It is also the last known European contact of the browser and its crew, until their return. Like Jacques Cartier, let’s continue our way to the north of the island. Indeed, on his trip, Cartier decided to go along Newfoundland by the north. A choice that will bring his men to the mouth of the St.Lawrence River. Welcome to the Strait of Belle Isle.

The landscape is beautiful, both simple and immense. This is where Jacques Cartier truly enters the unknown. There are even new animals, such as polar bears, morses or large penguins (a species that is extinguished today). To us, seeing this fauna would be a real miracle.

However, the view of the mouth remains a grandiose spectacle. It is like Canada: everything is bigger, more impressive.

If the beginning of this adventure is already beautiful, the suite will only be more beautiful. It is time to follow the mouth and plunge into the river. Now the earth is becoming increasingly present. And after having passed the island of Anticosti, the American continent offers itself to us, in the same way that it offered to Jacques Cartier, five centuries earlier.

The first coast we see is that of the Magdalen Islands, which Cartier once flew to Prince Edward Island. Located on one side, these islands are resembling and are easily recognizable, thanks to their sand and ochre-colored rock, offering an unparalleled colourful panorama. Where the blue coming from the Atlantic prevails. Let us take the time to admire these lands, to look at them with our eyes, without device.

We find ourselves in one of the most beautiful places on our planet. A place both wild, electric because filled with history, but also soothing.

This time, Jacques Cartier does not take it, and continues to sink into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Enough to enter a scaffold: the Baie des Chaleurs. Welcome to Gaspésie. The environment can recall the Norman and British beaches, as water flows directly onto huge cliffs, giving the impression that the land has stopped there.

Next to such a prowess, it is impossible not to feel tiny. Yet, none of this is enough to scare our browser, which sets the course on the land.

The meeting with the Amerindians

As soon as they arrived on the farmland, the French fell to the nose with the Micmacs, an indigenous people. The two ethnic groups do not hesitate to do business, in good terms, until Jacques Cartier deposits a huge granite cross there, on which is registered “Live the Queen of France! » .

For yes, Cartier seeks Asia and wealth, but he intends to colonize these new lands. Later, another tribe, the Iroquois, guess the intention of the Malouin. But a lie (i.e. it would be a benchmark) is enough to soothe relationships. If today the cross no longer exists, it has been reproduced identically and installed in the same place in Gaspé.

As for the Micmacs, they still live in Gaspésie. Their reservations (some of which may be visited) make it possible to feel the fascination experienced by our occitdental eyes, in front of a completely new culture, far from European customs. However, fascination is shared. Indeed, the Amerindians (especially Chief Iroquois, Donnacona) fall under the charm of the European female gente on the ship. So much so that Micmacs and Iroquois ask the Cartier band to market them...

Our browser also has an interest in Amerindian culture and its different tribes. But his intentions are not the most peaceful... Thus, Breton invites the natives to a great feast and takes advantage of it to betray the trust established between the two peoples, by taking away two young Iroquois!

One of them is none other than the son of Chief Donnacona. The French regain the sea and return to the Old Continent. But Jacques Cartier doesn’t intend to stop there and has an idea behind the head...

To discover it, go to episode 2, where we will leave in the footsteps of Jacques Cartier’s second journey. Quickly!