MSI Press Blog

  Canada’s history stretches back thousands of years through the lives, cultures, and nations of its First Peoples. But when we talk specifically about the first European settlement in what is now Canada , the story begins earlier than many imagine — not with Champlain in Québec, but with the Vikings at L’Anse aux Meadows . L’Anse aux Meadows: The First Known European Settlement (c. 1000 CE) Long before France or England laid claim to the land, Norse explorers from Iceland and Greenland reached the northern tip of Newfoundland. Archaeological remains at L’Anse aux Meadows confirm a small Viking settlement dating to around the year 1000. This site is now a UNESCO World Heritage location and represents the earliest known European presence in North America. The Norse did not stay long — perhaps only a few years — but their arrival marks the first documented European attempt at settlement on Canadian soil. Early French Settlements: Port-Royal and Québec After the Vikings, European set...

  Quebec On our way back home to Pittsburgh from Maine on one visit when the kids were little, we came pretty close to South Hero Island in Vermont. (That story will be told in another volume because there was a story that took place on South Hero Island.) Once on that island, we were intrigued by the chain of islands in Lake Champlain that separated Vermont from New York. The islands felt almost like stepping‑stones laid across the lake—long, low stretches of farmland and shoreline, connected by narrow causeways that skimmed just above the water. Each island had its own quiet personality: a cluster of houses here, a field of grazing cows there, a glimpse of blue water widening on both sides. It was the kind of landscape that pulls you forward without your noticing, island after island, as though the lake itself were guiding you north. That chain, island after island, pulled us straight up to Canada. Once again, we were in Canada, unplanned. The crossing itself was so undramatic th...