The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, edited by H. P. Biggar

Captain’s logs from Canada’s Columbus

Jacques Cartier

French explorer Jacques Cartier made three expeditions to Canada in 1534, 1535-1536, and 1541-1542. While Europeans had been visiting Newfoundland for at least half a millennium, and perhaps a few fisherman or trappers had ventured further West, Cartier was the first White mariner to purposefully explore and map the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. In that sense Cartier was the first European to discover “Canada,” which was the name by which the Natives referred to a region in what is now Québec. Cartier travelled as far upriver as the Native village of Hochelaga, which he renamed Montréal. Shortly after returning from his voyages, Cartier published accounts of his travels and discoveries in France.

The 1924 edition of The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, edited by H. P. Biggar and published by the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa, was intended to be the definitive volume on Cartier’s expeditions. Not only does the book reproduce Cartier’s accounts of his voyages, it also contains copious footnotes that compare and contrast discrepancies in previous editions and clarify the modern names of geographic locations. The volume also includes several appendices of related material, such as accounts of Canadian expeditions by Richard Hore (1536) and Jean François de la Roque de Roberval (1542), as well as ethnographic information on the Huron Indians of the region. Not surprisingly for a Canadian publication, Cartier’s narratives are printed both in French (at the top of the page) and English (at the bottom of the page). Consequently, though the book is about 350 pages long, each page often bears only one small paragraph of text in the reader’s language of choice.

Cartier’s chronicles of his journeys are surprisingly brief. His accounts leave much to be desired compared to the more detailed travelogues of later explorers, but the paucity of data is made up for by the excitement of first discoveries in previously unexplored territory, such as the French explorers’ first glimpse of smoking, first sighting of a walrus, and their initial meetings with the locals. On his first journey Cartier merely explored the coast of Newfoundland and ventured into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The bulk of the book focuses on his second journey, in which he discovered the mouth of the St. Lawrence and ventured up the river to interact with the Natives. His account of the third voyage is also quite brief, as he mainly revisited regions he had previously explored. Much of Cartier’s narrative deals with the geographic position of islands, the location of good harbors, and other information intended for future navigators. Of more interest to today’s readers, however, are the accounts of his dealings with the Native American or First Nations inhabitants.

For anyone interested in the history of Canada or the French colonial presence in North America, Cartier’s accounts are a must-read, and Biggar’s 1924 edition is as comprehensive a volume on the subject as one is likely to find in the public domain. Canadian patriots and anticolonialists alike can benefit from reading the explorer’s original accounts and drawing their own conclusions from the primary sources. One gets a fleeting glimpse of “pre-Cartierian” civilization in the North. Cartier was a kinder, friendlier conquistador than his Spanish counterparts in the South, but his imperialistic hutzpah is still very much evident. On the one hand this is a heroic story of intrepidity, valor, and perseverance. On the other hand one can see the beginning of a troublesome relationship between two cultures that foreshadows centuries of Canadian history to follow.
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