How delightful to stand where Jacques Cartier planted his symbolic cross with its emblazoned shield bearing the royal lilies of France, and to remember that here his banners were first unfurled to the breezes of this western land. And while the loyal sons of St. Denis saluted the fluttering flags as the guns were discharged in joyful salvo to mark the birth of an empire beyond the seas—did the wondering Indians understand the full meaning of the ceremony, or realize that this handful of men was but the advance guard of a mighty host pro- pelled by a still mightier force—the power of civilization——that would compel the poor ”sons of the forest” to give way before the irresistible onrush ?

This sixteenth century invasion of Canada seems very remote to us; but long before Columbus, Cabot or Cartier set foot on the Western Continent, other Europeans had visited it.

From the first contact of the white man with his red brother, the Aboriginal tribes living along the North Atlantic coast had well defined and century-old traditions of a wonderful ship that had been cast ashore manned by strange white men who were all drowned. In Norse history, also, there is the Saga of Eric the Red relating to the discovery of the east coast of North America, before the Christian Era was a thousand years old. Whittier refers to this in his legendary verses, ”The Norsemen”:

“What sea-worn barks are those which throw The light spray from each rushing prow? Have they not in the North Sea’s blast Bowed to the waves the straining mast ?

Onward they glide,——and now I View Their iron-armed and stalwart crew, Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, Turned to green earth and summer sky; Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;

Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Streams back the Norseman’s yellow hair."

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