When the French Were Here
Champlain Quadricentennial
History
Samuel de Champlain was an intrepid French navigator and explorer, a skilled geographer and master mapmaker. He was the first person to explore and map the Atlantic Coast from Newfoundland to Cape Cod and as far west as the Great Lakes. He forged an alliance with northern Indian nations that lasted a century and a half, spanning the entire French colonial experience in North America. He founded the permanent settlement at Quebec and consolidated French trading and farming in the vast Saint Lawrence Valley.
