New France summary

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, acknowledged founder of the city of Quebec (1608), and consolidator of the French colonies in the New World. He was the first known European to sight the lake that bears his name (1609) and made other explorations of what are now northern New York, the

Jacques Cartier was a French mariner whose explorations of the Canadian coast and the St. Lawrence River (1534, 1535, 1541–42) laid the basis for later French claims to North America (see New France). Cartier also is credited with naming Canada, though he used the name—derived from the

Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac was a French courtier and governor of New France (1672–82 and 1689–98) who, despite a record of misgovernment, managed to encourage profitable explorations westward and to repel British and Iroquois attacks on New France. Frontenac’s father, Henri de Buade, was