Exploration in Canada: From “New” Continent to High North

For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples traveled, traded, hunted, fished, and built communities throughout the lands that are now Canada. They developed extensive knowledge of rivers, coastlines, seasons, travel routes, and environments.

Beginning in the late 1400s, European sailors began exploring these same regions. Their goals changed over time. Some searched for routes to Asia, while others wanted fish, furs, land, or greater knowledge of the continent. European explorers often depended on Indigenous guides, technologies, maps, and knowledge as they traveled.

This article traces how European exploration changed across several centuries and how it contributed to the development of Canada.

During the 1500s, European sailors were searching for a westward sea route to Asia. Instead, their voyages brought them to lands in North America that were already home to Indigenous peoples.

In 1497, John Cabot, an Italian sailor working for England, reached the Atlantic coast of North America, probably near Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island. His voyage encouraged greater European interest in the rich fishing grounds of the North Atlantic.

Several decades later, French explorer Jacques Cartier traveled through the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the St. Lawrence River. Cartier met Indigenous peoples, including St. Lawrence Iroquoians, and gathered information about the region. The name Canada comes from the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning a village or settlement. Europeans eventually began using the word for a much larger region.

Other English explorers, including Martin Frobisher and John Davis, sailed into northern waters searching for a Northwest Passage, a sea route through or around North America to Asia. They did not find the route they wanted, but their voyages added information to European maps of the Atlantic and Arctic coasts.

By the 1600s, European exploration was becoming closely connected to settlement and trade.

Samuel de Champlain helped establish the French settlement of Quebec in 1608. He explored and mapped portions of the St. Lawrence region and built alliances with several Indigenous nations, including Algonquin and Wendat communities. These alliances connected the French to existing Indigenous trade and diplomatic networks. Champlain also joined his allies in conflicts with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Farther north, English explorers continued searching for a route to Asia. Henry Hudson entered the large body of water now called Hudson Bay in 1610. His crew became trapped by ice during the winter. The following year, part of the crew mutinied and set Hudson and several others adrift. They were never seen again.

Fishing stations, settlements, missions, and fur-trading posts expanded during this period. These activities increased European involvement in the region and changed relationships among European and Indigenous peoples.

During the 1700s, the fur trade encouraged Europeans to travel farther into the interior of the continent. Beaver fur was especially valuable in Europe, where it was used to make felt hats.

Indigenous peoples were essential to this trade. They knew the waterways and travel routes, supplied furs and food, made equipment such as canoes and snowshoes, and served as guides, translators, and trading partners.

Henry Kelsey traveled inland from Hudson Bay with Indigenous companions and reached the Canadian Prairies. French trader Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye and members of his family traveled west through regions around Lake Winnipeg. Their expeditions relied on Indigenous routes, information, and relationships.

These journeys were not simply trips into unknown lands. Europeans were entering regions that Indigenous peoples had traveled through and understood for generations.

Later in the 1700s, fur-trading companies wanted more detailed maps of rivers, lakes, and possible routes to the Pacific Ocean.

Samuel Hearne traveled from Hudson Bay to the Arctic coast with a group led by Matonabbee, a Dene leader whose knowledge and experience were essential to the journey.

Alexander Mackenzie later followed the river that now bears his name north to the Arctic Ocean. In 1793, with help from Indigenous guides and communities, his expedition crossed the continent and reached the Pacific coast.

Simon Fraser and David Thompson also traveled and mapped large areas of western Canada. Fraser's expedition relied on Indigenous guides and communities as it traveled along the river now named for him. Thompson used surveying skills along with knowledge gathered through Indigenous and fur-trade networks to create detailed maps of a huge portion of western North America.

These maps expanded European geographic knowledge, but the routes often followed waterways, trails, and travel networks that Indigenous peoples already knew.

European exploration also reached the Pacific coast by sea.

Spanish and British expeditions explored and mapped sections of the coast during the late 1700s. Captain James Cook visited the Pacific Northwest coast in 1778, including Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. Spanish expeditions also traveled through the region and interacted with coastal First Nations.

European governments competed for control of territory and trade along the Pacific coast. British officer George Vancouver conducted detailed surveys during the 1790s, creating European maps of many islands, channels, and inlets.

These European maps often gave places new European names, even though Indigenous peoples already had names and extensive geographic knowledge of the same locations.

During the 1800s, European explorers again focused heavily on finding a Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic.

One of the best-known expeditions was led by British explorer Sir John Franklin in 1845. His ships, Erebus and Terror, became trapped in Arctic ice. Franklin and the other members of the expedition eventually died.

Inuit were important witnesses to what happened. Inuit accounts provided information about the movements and fate of Franklin's crew. Explorer John Rae learned Arctic travel and survival techniques from Indigenous peoples and gathered information from Inuit about the missing expedition.

Other expeditions gradually mapped more of the Arctic coastline and islands. This was new geographic information for Europeans, but Inuit had traveled throughout and lived in these regions for generations.

Between 1903 and 1906, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen completed the first recorded voyage by ship through the entire Northwest Passage.

Amundsen spent time with Inuit communities and learned techniques for Arctic travel, clothing, sledding, and survival. His expedition showed again how valuable Indigenous knowledge was to outsiders attempting to travel through the Arctic.

During the 1900s, airplanes, icebreakers, satellites, and other technologies changed how the Arctic was mapped and studied. Scientists gathered increasing amounts of information about weather, sea ice, wildlife, and climate.

At the same time, Inuit continued living and traveling throughout their Arctic homelands and maintaining knowledge developed over generations.

European exploration changed greatly between the 1400s and 1900s. Early sailors searched for routes to Asia. Later explorers became involved in fishing, the fur trade, settlement, territorial claims, mapping, and scientific research.

European exploration also contributed to colonization and expanding European control over lands where Indigenous peoples were already living. Encounters among First Nations, Inuit, and Europeans created trade relationships and alliances, but they also brought conflict, disease, competition for land and resources, and major political changes.

Throughout this history, Europeans repeatedly depended on Indigenous peoples for geographic knowledge, transportation, food, guides, technologies, and established travel routes. Understanding exploration in Canada therefore requires looking not only at the Europeans whose names appeared on maps, but also at the Indigenous peoples who already knew, traveled through, and lived in these lands.