Search for "New France"

Samuel de Champlain, cartographer, explorer, colonial administrator, author (born circa 1567 in Brouage, France; died 25 December 1635 in Quebec City). Known as the “Father of New France,” Samuel de Champlain played a major role in establishing New France from 1603 to 1635. He is also credited with founding Quebec City in 1608. He explored the Atlantic coastline (in Acadia), the Canadian interior and the Great Lakes region. He also helped found French colonies in Acadia and at Trois-Rivières, and he established friendly relations and alliances with many First Nations, including the Montagnais, the Huron, the Odawa and the Nipissing. For many years, he was the chief person responsible for administrating the colony of New France. Champlain published four books as well as several maps of North America. His works are the only written account of New France at the beginning of the 17th century.

Sir David Kirke, trader and privateer, first governor of Newfoundland (born at Dieppe, France c1597; died near London, England 1654). Kirke, with Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, formed the Company of Adventurers, which was granted patents by King Charles I. It gave them the right to trade and settle in Canada. Kirke was the owner of the first recorded Black chattel-slave in New France, Olivier Le Jeune. 

André Siegfried, geographer, political commentator (born 21 April 1875 in Le Havre, France; died 28 March 1959 in Paris, France). Preeminent French geographer of his generation, Siegfried is the author of several books about Canada and North America.

Pehr Kalm, botanist (b in Sweden 6 Mar 1716; d in Finland 16 Nov 1779). Kalm was educated in Finland and Sweden. He met the leading European naturalist, Linnaeus, in 1741, and under his influence became an expert on botanical applications to agriculture.

André Michaux, botanist, explorer (b near Versailles, France 8 Mar 1746; d on Madagascar 11 Oct 1803?). He compiled the first North American flora which includes many plants collected in Lower Canada in 1792.

Charles Albanel, Jesuit priest, missionary and explorer (b in Auvergne, France c 1616; d at Sault Ste Marie 11 Jan 1696).

Jean Nicollet de Belleborne, interpreter, explorer (born c. 1598 in Cherbourg, France; died 27 Oct 1642 in Sillery, QC).

His skill in surveying and mapping had been noted, and in 1763 he was employed by the Admiralty to prepare charts of the coastline and offshore waters of Nova Scotia, at the same time that James COOK was working in Newfoundland and Samuel HOLLAND in the Gulf of St Lawrence and New England.

William Bell Dawson, surveyor, engineer, civil servant (b at Pictou, NS 2 May 1854; d at Montréal 21 May 1944). Son of Sir John William DAWSON, he studied at McGill and the École des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, France.

Raoul Blanchard, geographer (b at Orléans, France, 1877; d at Paris 1965). He was considered the father of modern geography in Québec, and exercised a profound influence on the future founders of geography departments at universities in Montréal and Québec.

Louis Jolliet, explorer, cartographer, king’s hydrographer, fur trader, seigneur, organist, teacher (baptized 21 September 1645 in Québec City; died between 4 May and 18 Oct 1700 likely near Île d'Anticosti).

Édouard-Gaston Deville, surveyor (b at La Charité sur Noire, Nièvre, France 21 Feb 1849; d at Ottawa 21 Sept 1924). Educated at the naval school at Brest, Deville served in the French Navy and was in charge of its hydrographic surveys throughout the world.

Sir Martin Frobisher, mariner, privateer, explorer (born ca. 1535 near Wakefield, England; died 22 November 1594 in Plymouth, England).

Topography was a subject taught at the Woolwich Royal Military Academy by artists such as Paul Sandby, who achieved his fame with ornamental landscapes that combined the precision of topography with a flexible and poetic visual technique.

Joseph Whiteside Boyle (born 6 November 1867 in Toronto, ON; died 14 April 1923 in Hampton Hill, Middlesex, United Kingdom). Nicknamed Klondike Joe, Boyle founded a gold mining company and became a millionaire in the aftermath of the Klondike gold rush. During the First World War, he equipped a machine gun unit and was a spy with the British secret service in Russia and Romania. He also reorganized the Russian military supply network, rescued Romanian prisoners of war and became the confidant and possibly lover of Queen Marie of Romania.

Frederick Pursh, botanist (b Friedrich Traugott Pursch in Grossenhain, Saxony 4 Feb 1774; d at Montréal 11 July 1820). At age 25 Pursh left Dresden to try his luck in the New World.

William Francis Ganong, regional historian, cartographer, botanist, linguist (b at Carleton, NB 19 Feb 1864; d at Saint John 7 Sept 1941). A passionate lover of New Brunswick, Ganong devoted his life to its study.

On a search mission for John ROSS in 1834, Back found and travelled the Thlew-ee-choh R, later named for him.

Francis Peabody Sharp, orchardist, horticulturalist (b at Northampton, NB 1823; d at Upper Woodstock, NB 1903). When Sharp moved to Upper Woodstock in 1844, he established the first of many family orchards that developed into the major New Brunswick fruit industry.