Empire: World History - 267. Colonising Canada: Kidnapping, Scurvy, & Fool’s Gold (Ep 1)

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Who was the first European to try and colonise Canada? Who was John Cabot and why was he spied on by Columbus? Why did Jacques Cartier kidnap Indigenous Canadians and take them back to France? What is the mythology behind Canada being known as “Turtle Island”? William and Anita explore the early history of the colonisation of Canada and how European settlers of the 16th century thought they had found China… ----------------- Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, our exclusive newsletter, and access to our members’ chatroom on Discord! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. ----------------- Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita. Arnan. And me, William Durimple. Why are you so perky, Anita? I'm perky. I'll tell you why I'm perky, because we're doing Canada. And because, of course, thank you very much for all of your kind wishes.

As the new foreign minister. The new foreign minister of Canada, I'm very, very pleased that we're doing Canada. I'm not the foreign minister. I always thought you should have got the job of prime minister, but... Really? Did you? Can I just say William is really stirring the pot with this? There are to Anita Arnans. I am not the one who's running Canada or her foreign policy.

You should be there. You should be. Only foreign minister. No job too big or small. But yes, we met. Did you know we met? I mean, there's a whole thing the BBC did about it. I don't know. You told the world.

many times. Told the world about it. Yes, well, that's because you keep telling everybody that we're the same person, which doesn't help. One of my favourite games. You do.

It really annoys me. Conflicting the two Anita Adams. Because honestly, then my timeline is entirely filled with either people saying congratulations or having bones to pick with me and there are bones to be. I think as I don't answer what they're talking about.

Anyway, look, we are doing Canada, which is why I'm perky. And the reason we're doing Canada, again, it's all sort of inspired by the Trump shopping list. the not so hidden American Empire of the territories that he would like to have. And very famously, William, he said, well, Canada, our next door neighbour, we'll just have you. You could be our 51st state.

What do you think about that, Canada? And what did Canada say? Canada wasn't thrilled, it has to be said. No, thanks. No, tar. But Canadians are very, very proud of their Canadian identity. Never more so than this year, yeah. Well, I mean, it carried Mark Carney to win Canada's federal election on April.

the 29th, it became official. He was the new prime minister and he did totally ride on the back of this anti-Trump sentiment, you know, that we are our own country. It was, it was a massive turnaround because, you know, the liberals were not doing well. And most of the commentators in, you know, mine, Trudeau was not popular at all, was he? No, they'd written them off. They'd completely written them off. But all Trump had to do is sort of talk about his 51st state, as they think nonsense. And it just torpedoed Mark Carney into power. And, you know, Did you see, do you remember watching that first kind of slightly excretiating meeting at the White House? The same kind of setting.

Well, I thought, again, my admiration for Carney has never been stronger. He just smiled. He's the only one of Trump's enemies who survived that sort of public grilling that poor Zelensky and the poor South African president were sort of humiliated by. But Carney came out standing tall and talked to Trump in Trump speak that he understood. Yeah. Do you remember he said, he said, as you know from real estate, President Trump, there are some places that are never for sale. Such as Buckingham Palace. So Trump comes back with never say never and Carney just laughs at him. Anyway, so that happened. Then you also had, which I think is a really significant thing, King Charles visiting Canada's Parliament and addressing Canada's Parliament and then also sort of reiterating the fact that you know what, we have historic ties and Canada is Canada and it is always going to be Canada. And you have the sort of head of state of Britain, a place that has extended an invite to Trump, which apparently he prizes very highly, saying, no, not on my watch, buddy, you're not having this place. So what we thought we'd do was we'd just do the empire treatment of Canada.

And you know how we do this. We sort of go back to the very, very beginning. We're talking about a massive landmass here, 41 times the size of the United Kingdom, stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. Is that true? 41 times. Yeah, 41 times the size of the UK. And it's almost the size of the entirety of Europe. So we've had the Vikings shown interest, the British, the French, the Americans, the Spanish, the Portuguese.

They've all staked claims in the past. Even the Russians had a toehold once upon a time. So I wanted to take us right back to the beginning. And are you sitting comfortably? You've got into very mythical mode, I think. We're about to find a whole new Anita Anand, who's neither the foreign minister nor the historian. but Anita Adam, the mythologist. The reason I wanted to do that was because, of course, all colonial powers assume that the country that they're going to go and take over is empty.

But it's never empty. There are people in it. And these are some of the creation stories of Canada from the people who first lived there. And I'm talking about the indigenous tribes of Canada. Are you sitting comfortably? Because I'm going to start at the beginning, before the beginning. There was once another land far older and far more magical than you can possibly imagine. a place of the first birds and the first animals and of the mighty nana bush, part spirit, part man.

So powerful was nana bush. He could turn himself into an animal, a tree stump, or a maple leaf, simply by wishing it so. He lived in peace with his brother by a lake, and their friends were the animals and the birds, and they could speak to them and understand them, and always peaceful and always joy, save for the threat of darkness in the waters, the treacherous serpent people, giant, evil, snake-like creatures who lived in the deep, great lakes. And they killed Narnabush's friends, the animals, and then one day they killed his brother too. So Nannabush hunted them down with his bow and arrow when he found two with the loudest heartbeats. He shot them, but they didn't

die. Wounded, they slithered into the waters and the lakes churned and rose higher and higher till the lakes drowned the entire land. Nannabush only just had time to get into his raft and pull as many of the animals as he could onto it as the world drowned around him. Always quiet. So he asked his friend, the loon, the bird, not the kind of loon we mix with, to dive into the water and find some of the old soil from the old lands, but the poor loon couldn't hold its breath for long enough. Then he sent the turtle, but it couldn't quite see to the bottom, let alone reach it. So finally he sent his friend the cunning muskrat. After what seemed like an age, the half-drowned creature came up with a clod of earth in its jaws.

Nana Bush put it on the turtle's back, he breathed magic onto it, and the great land grew on its back. That land is the land we now know as Canada, in which the first people know it as Turtle Island. I love that. So that is, you know, myths of the... I knew you'd love it.

You'd love it. So Turtle Island is what it is meant to be to those first tribes. What's quite interesting is it has all sorts of echoes. No, as Arc. Well, it was no Zarq in the middle, but with all those snaky creatures going into the water, and then ending up with the turtles, there's a lot of Indian creation myths in there. Exactly.

There's all these stories of the Nagas of the deep. If you look at the story of the creation of the Nepali myths, particularly close to that. And then this idea that you have in Indian mythology of the world balanced on the back of a turtle. On the back of a turtle shell, that's right, which is an elephant standing on a turtle shell, which carries the world upon its back. So, I mean, you know, you sort of start wondering whether, you know, the world is populated by a one people who spread out all across the planet. There is links, aren't there, between some of the peoples in the Himalayas. There are actual links, I believe, aren't there, between the Ladakhis and some of the peoples in Bolivia.

Anyway, we'll go on to that later. Tangent for another time. But look, that creation myth, William, is the Anishinabi people, sometimes known as the Chippewa, indigenous people who traditionally lived. in the Great Lakes region, the northern plains and parts of the sub-arctic and northeastern woodlands of Canada. Tell us a little bit about how many indigenous people actually live in Canada today, William, because I think you've got the figures in front of you. So, according to the 2000-21 census, there are 1.8 million indigenous people in Canada, some 5% of the population.

The Cree or Algonquins are the largest group. Then there's the Anishinaabe, Anishinaabe, and then the Iroquay. And there are, well, I think 634 recognized First Nation communities in modern Canada. And in this episode, we're going to look at the history of Canada before it became the country we know today. But I've got a little story I haven't told you any turn. Yes. Always pleased when I bring my family into things. Look at my thrilled face.

It's got a dalrymple in it, hasn't it? Well, when I did my DNA, I'm 1% Mick Mack from the Halifax region. Bazaar. I didn't know where that came from. But there it is at the DNA. So the Mick-Macks are quite important in the history of Canada. They come up quite a lot with first contacts with the French. But I thought it was only financial.

So when James I was trying to get money to colonise Canada later on, he created something called Nova Scotia Baronets. And basically you paid money, you got a knighthood. And one of my lawyer ancestors in the 17th century paid the money and became Sir Hugh de Rompul. But you had to have some land in Nova Scotia. and I always presumed it was just bought and then sold off later. But if we've got, I've got 1% Mick Mac, presumably, some Drupal did go over there and make merry on the Halifax coast.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised knowing you lot. This form, isn't there? It's not interesting. I mean, I've got no notion of this other than this turning up in my DNA when I sent it off for analysis. Anyway, look, in 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, made an apology to the descendants of the First Nations and Inuit people of Canada.

They are two distinct groups for the brutal removal of Indigenous children from their families. They're appalling treatment in these things called Indian residential schools for more than a century. And we're going to do special episodes in this series about those residential schools. There are places of utter horror and torment. So we've got an expert who's going to come and talk to us about that. But I thought, you know, if we're going to talk about the beginning of the beginning, and we started by mythology, let's actually start with the history or rather the archaeology of all of this, because where did the First Nations actually come from? And there has been,

I should just warn you, there's been something of a recent earthquake in the reading of that. Anyway, what has been the accepted wisdom for almost 100 years about where the First Nations came from? For almost 100 years, the idea was the first people crossed over what we now called the Bering Land Bridge, which was that ice-free corridor, which connected the two continents during the last Iron Age, 13,000 years. years ago. And this land bridge was said to be vast and which connected Siberia with Alaska, effectively. But all this has been under very intense scholarly analysis. It's been turned inside out is what's happened. And people have found an extra 10,000 years of human history in North America. In fact, it goes back to 24,000 years ago. And more and more carbon C-14 datings are coming up in

North America at 24,000 years before our time. So, I mean, you've got proof positive. It's not just another theory because there is a place in northern Canada, right next to Alaska, called the Yukon, a place called the Bluefish Caves, where they found stone tools, which you can date without question to 24,000 years ago. So this is well before the Bering Bridge people supposedly came over. They're known as the Clovis people. It was only in the 1970s and 80s that the new excavations of, you know, the Aboriginal people who were there a lot before came out. And they were produced by a man who I like to think of as sort of the Canadian Indiana Jones, to be honest. Jack Sinkmar is his name. And this poor guy, who does, if you look at pictures of him, can tell he's

been toiling in the sun for how exactly your favourite kind of archaeologist that you'd love to go and take your little brush and sort of stand beside and work with. But he, when he first presented his findings back in the late 1970s, he described it as an absolutely brutal experience. So he'd go to these archaeological conferences and say, look, you know, about Canada, a place I've done a lot of work in, I think you're wrong. And audiences would get up and walk out of his peers in archaeology, or they'd boo and jeer at him.

If they did question him and sit around for long enough, he described it as a Spanish Inquisition. So basically his research established that, you know, the first people in North America came much earlier than anyone had suspected. 10,000 years earlier. Yeah, I mean, you can actually go and visit those bluefish caves even now, if you like. And just before we go to the break, I mean, I'll just sort of mention very briefly that the next big sort of voyage of people, human beings, who come over to Canada, was Lee Ferrickson, our friend, the Viking. Now, if you've heard our chaotic Greenland episodes, you'll know that this is Eric the Red son, as William calls sort of the psycho killer. It's his boy who comes. And the son of Eric

is widely regarded to be the first European to set foot in North America. And we're talking about the year 1,000 when he sailed from Greenland. That's right. And one of the reasons we should say that more peoples do not cross the Bering Straits is that that land bridge sinks in about 8,000 BC. So the route that all these early peoples came over from Siberia through Alaska into the North American subcontinent ceases to exist at 8,000 BC. So they have to come before then. Okay, but the Vikings, we sort of have a better idea of where they came because, you know, listen to those Viking episodes because they settled in a place called Vinland, which we have now established after arguing on the programme, was about the grapes that they found and turned into

wine and, you know, that too, sort of that area of Finland, which is in Newfoundland, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so if you get a chance to go, go. I know several people have been in it's an amazing site. It's apparently an astonishing site. Very, very well by seeing. So the Canadians, although it sort of lies in Newfoundland, the Canadians, I mean, they acknowledge Leif Eriksen, but in America there's an actual Lee Erickson Day. Did you know this? They celebrate Leif Erickson Day. Yes, there is. There's a date for it. If you watch SpongeBob Squarepants, do you want to be? Do you want to watch, Watch SpongeBob, square pants at all?

Not on my radar, but I know he is. There is a happy Leaf Erickson Day episode where everybody has to wear horned hats and beards for that. So yes, 9th of October. In the United States, they acknowledge it. There's only one province in Canada that acknowledges it, and that's Saskatchewan. But what happens in Canada is they're looking much further back now and looking at those indigenous people who came sort of so much earlier than anyone suspected. Let's take a break. And after the break, we're going to talk about why so many countries were so interested in what was a difficult place to reach and pretty inhospitable when you got there. Welcome back. So in the last half, we were talking about our friend Leif Erickson, son of psycho killer Eric, Eric the Red, who finds Vinland and finds this land that's so much more hospitable than either Iceland or Greenland, that it's full of grapes and all sorts of other good things.

But the hoped-for Norse colony is driven off by indigenous attacks. There are vast armies gather around the Norse, and they have a fighting retreat to their boats. And indeed, archaeologists in Greenland have found corpses in their digging with Native American arrowheads embedded in the bones in their shoulders. So wounded men made it back to Greenland, limped back, only to die there without the arrowheads. removed. And then passes 500 years when there are no further European... When nobody bothers for a while. No bothers. But then suddenly we kick off with Christopher Columbus, which is something we're going to be doing in the future with a proper series on him and the whole conquistador

discovery of Latin America. But we're looking northwards. And as far as North America is concerned, the next person to appear bobbing over the horizon is 1499. when John Cabot, who is an Italian but is sailing out of Bristol, interestingly, makes a voyage to the coast of North America under commission from Henry the 7th. Tell me more about this, Anita. Just first of all to add, you know, Columbus five years earlier tries it. And the reason that both Cabot and Columbus are interested in finding this is that they believe there is a Northwest Passage, that they can get to Asia, so that is India and China, and pick up. the porcelain and the spices, which are so highly prized in Europe, even as early as this. And they all find a shortcut, because otherwise, the only way you can sort of get to Asia is to do this huge loop around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, or the Cape of Good Hope, I should say. So they want to find this Northwest Passage, which they think is just this much easier way. But, you know, the waters are treacherous. It's very, very difficult. It ice is up for part of the year.

So Cabot is kind of driven by this, that, you know, OK, Columbus didn't manage it. So maybe I can manage it. Now his name is John Cabot to us, but his actual name was Giovanni Cabotto. He was an Italian navigator. He has this real thing about Columbus that he's got to be better than Columbus. And he tries to get commissions in the same way that Columbus did. But everyone tells him to bugger off, really, until he meets Henry the 7th, who says, I'll give you a bit of money for your voyage, Cabot, because, you know, look, we can see that there's a lot of excitement going on.

And so he tries, you know, in Italy, so Riven, so he goes to Portugal and he says, look, could you maybe pay for this? And they say no. He goes to the Spanish and they say, no, we've already forked out for another bloke. We can't pay for you as well. So go away. And so he ends up with the British who don't have as much money to spend. But they give him a bit. So he gets hold of this little ship called Matthew. Isn't that gorgeous? His little ship called Matthew, which is a piddly little ship compared to, you know, the things that Columbus have. 50 tons? Yeah, just tiny. I mean, it's really very, very small. The Matthew of Bristol, built in Bristol, immediately, almost immediately he starts. He runs into difficulty because, you know, the Matthew is only a little tiny thing. The waters are harsh. He's only got a crew of 20 men. It's very much the budget trip to the new world.

Only 20 men, three of them were his sons, all of whom were minors. You know, just they were underage. They were just tiny kids. They were minors as in younger age rather than they didn't have pickaxes with them. No, they didn't dig. No, you're quite right to pull me up on what I thought was an obvious point. Why, Cabot? Why are you taking pickaxes on a ship? A little group of Geordie Miners, find of a turn. What are you doing, Cabot? Are you drilling? It's a ship. It's only the Matthew.

Anyway, so what he does have Cabot in his hands is he has a royal patent, which makes him sort of the first voyager to go off and discover this part of the world for England and King King. Henry. And I shall tell you what the letter of patent said, it's worth quoting, the letter gives free authority and faculty and power to sail to all parts, regions and coasts of the eastern, western and northern sea under our banners, flags and ensigns, with five ships or vessels of whatever burden and quality they may be, and with so many, and with such mariners and men, as they may wish to take with them in said ships, at their own proper costs and charges, because we're not praying, to find, discover and investigate whatsoever island. countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels in whatsoever part of the world

are placed, which therefore this time were unknown to all Christians, signed the king. So can you see sort of the kind of mandate, which is basically, we'll pay for a bit, we'll send you, you sort of raise the rest of the money, and whatever you have, we'll have it, thank you very much, stick a flag in it. There is this really marvellous thing that Cabot, when he goes off, even though it is just a little ship, and he departs in May with this tiny, tiny crew with an unnamed Burgundian. I love that. There's an unnamed Burgundian, as if he can't be trusted. And he's got a Genoese barber on board as well. Good job. He's got someone to cut his hair. Well, it's not. It's actually, you know what? Because I was really struck by the cast list

of this voyage on the Matthew. Barber's always doubled up as surgeons. Because no self-respecting surgeon would go on a voyage this long and so crap over really horrible seas. So the barber would be the one who could stitch up and cut. The Italians take their barbering very seriously. I got locked down in northern Italy for the second lockdown. And one of the nice differences between being locked down in Italy, anywhere else the world, is they regard hairdressing as one of the emergency services. And so all hair dressing shops are open. All of us used to go off once a week to have her hair done. That's so bloody marvellous. But that was not why he brought. He didn't think it was an emergency service that he needed.

It wasn't an emergency service. He actually literally needed him to hack off arms if things got really bad out at sea. There is this wonderful little aspect to this that he was being spied on, even though he really wasn't much of a threat to Columbus. Columbus clearly was a bit bothered by Cabot throwing himself into the same part of the world, trying to find the Northwest Passage. And there's a thing called the John Day letter. And John Day is a Bristol merchant.

We don't think that's his real name. He's his name. He's really called Hugh Say. Haysay. That's it, exactly. And he is writing letters to Columbus about everything that Cabot is doing. And he refers briefly to the voyage, but there will be others that come after it. And he's sort of keeping Columbus updated on everything that is going on. One of the day letters says, since your lordship wants information relating to the first voyage, here's what happened. He went with one ship. His crew confused him. He was short of supplies and ran into bad weather and he decided to turn back. And it's kind of true. It's a little bit true because, William, I mean, he does land in North America, doesn't he? It's June the 24th, 1497 that he actually makes landfall.

So he's in Newfoundland. And he thinks, with all of his heart, he's reached Asia. That this is it. I'm here. And he claims the land for England. Which is exactly what Columbus thought. That's exactly what Columbus does. Yeah.

I'm in India. Yeah. He comes back. He marks the ground upon which he's landed. John Day, who's already been very bitchy about the achievement and said, you know, he was very confused why his crew and he just turned back. He didn't stay for very long. And what John Day, the man who's spying for Columbus says, is he did not advance beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow. So what hell does he know about this new lad? So, but he comes back and when he gets back to Bristol, he is a hero. Is Hugh say that the spy employed by Columbus in Bristol or is he on the voyage?

No, he's in Bristol. So he's just overhearing stuff in the pubs in Bristol. His stuff is half-assed nonsense, you know, from the pub. But it's not very positive. And it's like, basically, don't you worry, Columbus, everything will be fine. Cabot, he's not up to much. He's not that tough. You're still fine.

You're still fine that Northwest Passage before he does. But when he comes back from that first voyage, Cabot sort of rides to London to report to the king. As well, he might if he's just discovered. You've found London, exactly. Well, he's found India, apparently. Apparently, he's on Asia, is what he's telling everyone. So he asks for a bit more money. And he says, you know, have you got anything for me?

Because I'd like to go back because, you know, some people not naming names John Day, you bastard, are saying I didn't really do much when I got there. So I'd quite like to go back and be able to stay a bit longer. So he's given a reward by the king at £10, which is about equivalent. Not much of a reward, exactly. No. 10 quid. Well, it's two years pay for an ordinary labourer, but still not very much.

You're right. It's kind of surprisingly poor compared to what the riches are on Columbus. Mean king. Mind you, they weren't very rich at that point. He goes back to the king and says, give me some more money. Please give me some more money. So the king says, all right, okay, well, stump up the cash. We realise the Matthew wasn't up to much.

We'll give you some money for five ships, because that's what our charter said you could have, our letter of patent. So just go back. And he does. He goes back barely a year later, May 1498. The ships are carrying loads of stuff. Cloth, caps, lace points and other trifles, we're told, which are going to be for trading. Not fruit trifles. No, no. No, they are the trifles that the miners like eating before they start hacking away at the rocks. It is the favourite diet of miners is a jelly trifle. You're good you are. The way you read between the lines.

I like to investigate these important items, exactly. So everybody's again watching Cabot flinging himself into the ocean again. There's a Spanish envoy in London who reports that one of his ships has lost fairly early on in this voyage. And he's been forced to land in Ireland. But then Cabot carries on with four ships. One of them is completely stricken and stays in Ireland. It doesn't get much further. It's like one of those Ryan Air flights, which stops.

Not much time. Wherever you're going, Barbados. Yeah, we'll stop in Dublin. So for centuries, there's not much else that we know about this expedition. But we do know that Cabot never comes back. His fleet and he are lost at sea. You know, maybe some people say he was killed by the Indigenous people when he decided to go a little bit further inland.

Some say his crew did away with him. We don't know. But we do know the next person who flung himself in, because this we know a lot about. Who is a French rival from Sir Malo. Tell us about Jacques Cartier. So, Jacques Cartier was a cider drinker from San Marlowe. A cider drinker.

That's what they drink in San Marlowe. Have you ever been to San Marl? I love San Marl. I didn't know that. There's a very good travel writing festival each year, which I often go to. They're very good oysters, very good cider. Right, good to know. Anyway, Jacques Cartier leaves San Marlou on April the 20th, 1534.

And he's got rather bigger boat than our friend Cabot. He's accompanied by 60 sailors, and he has two ships, about 60 tons each, and they set sail from Samarlo across the Atlantic quite smoothly. And after only 20 days, he enters the strait of Belil, and the following the north shore of the Gulf St. Lawrence for a time, is amazed by what he sees, then turns back, heads south, following the west coast of Newfoundland. And then he sails towards the continents, girting the Magdalen Islands. and he then goes on a big sort of bird murdering expedition. Which I like to call the burdering spree. I just absolutely white-st burdering. You thought you had better things to do when you've just discovered a new continent.

I mean, how many birds are we talking about? It's shocking. How many birds did he kill? Around a thousand birds. Most of them great orcs, which are now extinct. It extinct since 1852. And this is on the Eil de de dez-o-o-o-the-is-o-o, the island of birds. Except no wazosos left there anymore.

Very few wazos. It's wasauless. It's now known as Roche or as a wazzo, a federal bird sanctuary northeast of Bryan Island on the Aglund Islands. Was it for food that he was slaughtering his birds? Or was he just...

No, for fun. I mean, you don't need a thousand bloody birds. For God's sake. A lot of this is just kind of target practice. You know, he's a ball. It's that kind of thing. But it is while he's sort of on this birdring. So they're quite easy to... So just blast them.

You know, it's like sort of shooting, you know, a great boulder of a creature. But what happens, what's important is when he's on Wazzo Island and sort of travels a little bit further out, is that he makes first contact with the original people of Canada, who now we've established, sort of been there for 24,000 years. The Mick Macs, your family, your bloodline, he sort of first meets, yes. Unexpected cousins. Yeah, so on the north side of Chalhe Bay, he meets the Mick Mac and it's kind of the first time. and there's a little bit of trading that goes on. Jacques Cartier, as you said before, has come laden with stuff to trade.

And he thinks, seeing these men with brown skin, that he's discovered the passage to Asia. This is it. Look, brown skin people. We know that's what they're like in India. Not the first to make that mistake. No. So, you know, he has this, clocks this up. This is all very, very exciting.

Hang on, you've missed out. It's a very important thing that he claims it for the King of France. He says, long live the King of France. And he plants a cross, claiming it for France. Yes, which is kind of, you know, the way that they behaved in those days, isn't it? Sort of sign it and it's yours kind of thing. So there is a chief there. Dona Kona is his name, Chief Dona Kona, who is the head of this tribe.

And he meets him. Right, after he's putting this long-lived the King of France and stuck a big 10-meter cross into the ground, he meets this chief and he meets his two sons. But thinking, right, he's got to go back now to France. So he's got to tell them that he's found India and he's found Indians. So what does he do? And, you know, Chief Danakana is very happy to see him.

They trade a bit. You know, they get on really well. He kidnaps his children. This happens the whole time. This seems to be the regular thing that these guys did. So the two sons called Tainani and Dom Agoya. Dom Agoya, exactly that. And these poor unfortunate captives later, and this is a spoiler, on his next voyage will act as intemperters because they learn French.

They do, but they're sort of taken back for, you know, sort of show and tell kind of thing. And also, you know, learning the French that they do when they're back in France, they're going to be working for him, whether they like it or not, they are going to, they're going to be proof that they reach, Cartier's reached an Asian land, and they're also going to be able to be his translators because he's going back. And he does go back. He goes back the following year with these two boys, because he's promised the chief. and the chief, the only reason he hasn't killed him

because he's outnumbered, you know, there are more of the Mick-Max there than there are of Cartier's crew. The reason they let him go is because the chief says, okay, you can take them, but you have to promise you're going to bring them back and you're going to bring us more stuff, more good stuff.

And that is the agreement. They sort of do this, whatever the equivalent of the handshake is at that point. And so Cartier does do a second voyage on May the 19th the following year. He navigates the St. Lawrence River and he reaches as far as present-day Montreal. And what he does is he gets to the rapids near Montreal and he calls them Lachine because he thinks that this is the gateway to China. He's discovered

it. So he names it. He's like so thrilled. This is what I have to get through. And then we're in China. He's got three ships, 110 men and his two McMak captives. They're really keen to see their father again. They are desperate. So, you know, they reach the St. Lawrence, Cartier sails up river for the first time. He's mapping wherever he goes, and that's a really big deal that Cartier manages to do this. He reaches Stadakona, where the chief, Donacona, is ruling, and he's waiting for him, and he sees his boys again, and there's a massive celebration, and there are gifts that are exchanged. But then Cartier says, okay, boys, say bye to your dad, because we're going now, and the boys say, wait, what? No, that wasn't what we said. We're staying.

And he says, no, but I need you, because I'm going to go up. River and I need to find more of this land and map more of the land. And, you know, we might meet some people. I can't talk to them. I don't know a single word of Mick Mack or anything else around here. So you come with me. And there's a little bit of sort of towing and throwing. And Chief Donacona is really against it because, and this is, I don't know whether this is back projected, but he wants the trading all to himself with his tribe, not, you know, opposition tribes that are elsewhere. So he sort of says grudgingly, okay, you can take my boys and then it's sort of like on the never, never to the boys, just make sure none of these other deals go through because they're

the only ones to speak the language. And you've got sort of Cartier suspecting that they're not operating in good faith, partly because they're really pissed off. They've only just got home and they've been taken away again. And partly because none of the deals that he tries to make subsequently go incredibly well, there's this natural haven and it's getting colder now. So before he goes, he goes any further. He's going to have to actually stay somewhere. So he finds this little bay, which is guarded against the elements. It's safe from the tides. It's a haven at the junction of the L'Arre and the St. Charles River. And he tucks in his ships. And he says, right, most of my ships will stay here, but we'll take one and we'll go up river, because I want to get to this place

called Hochelaga. I've heard of Hokka Lager. There's a great tribe there, and I think if I can get there and stick my cross into the ground there as well. That's a lot more of France that we get and we might get even closer to Asia. You know, we're quite up near China. Deeper into China. We'll come back with loads of porcelain if we just get through. So he wants to take the two boys, they're really pissed off. They say absolutely not. We're not going. He's furious going, hang on a minute, after all the kidnapping I've done for you. After all I've done for you. Such ingratitude, rank ingratitude. I've taught you French. kidnapped you and everything. Why are you just leaving me? Go back to your family. Who would want that?

What is wrong with you to be with your dad? So what he suspects, though, is that they don't want to help him make any kind of contacts in Hokalaga, which, by the way, is present-day Montreal. There's a very warm welcome, but it sort of stops after that because nobody speaks the language, because the boys won't come with him. They won't translate. And there's a whole bunch of his Cartier's people who only speak French. So it doesn't get really too far. They do a sort of a sign-languagy thing. but it's all sort of lost. So it's a bit of a wasted journey. So he goes back to the Bay and they spend the winter hunkered down.

And it is a terrible winter for Cartier because there are no supplies. They are weakened by the cold. They've got really terrible food. They can't resist disease. Scurvy again. Yeah. They only have dried salt meat or salt fish to eat. Fruit and vegetables, none at all.

It's a disaster for them. And they're sort of stuck. there and they are decimated by illness. And by mid-February, nearly all the sailors have got scurvy. Their legs and arms are all swollen. The gums are rotting. Their teeth are falling out their heads. That's miserable.

And do you know the one who actually saves them is the chief's son, the older son of the chief, who comes with this sort of tea for the crew? He was kidnapped, taken away from his lands. He makes him this sort of tea of bark and twigs of a Canadian conifer. And nowadays, people think it's probably eastern white cedar. and this is an antidote to Scurvy. It's enriched with vitamin C. But even though, you know, he tries to help them,

25 of Cartier sailors die from Scurvy. So, you know, the climate is bad. It's all terrible in February. Chief Dona Kona and his men set out on a hunting expedition. They are accompanied by several people who Cartier can't recognise. And now what Cartier think, because he's all depleted from the winter that he's spent there, is that these are some enemies and Dona Kona is going to attack him. Now, where there was friendship and there was gratitude, thanks for the tea,

there is now suspicion and that this is not safe. So what he does is he takes Dona Kona and his two sons hostage again and kidnaps them and puts them on his ship and takes them back to France. partly so that, you know, they can describe the marvels of Canada to Fronsoir the first, partly so they can't ferment any kind of rebellion against him when he, you know, comes back because he's absolutely determined to come back because now he's made his way to China and India. It's going to be great. And he's also got these maps with him.

So what happens when he gets back with his, again, kidnapped party and greater info and, you know, joyous news that he's reached China, William? He gets another sponsorship. Francois I the first sponsors a vast colonising expedition and appoints a name Jean-François de la Roque as commander. Eric Cartier goes off on his third voyage in 1541 and establishes a settlement at the foot of the Calist of Cabruges and for the first time he erects fortifications. He then makes a second journey inland up the river to Hoshlaga and Cartier learns that the route beyond the rapids is long and difficult. And it's also not China.

It's also not China. Is he realizing that by now? I don't know. I mean, I hope so. I don't think he has. You still think he's in China. Right, okay. He does, however, discover what he believes to be gold and diamonds in the rocks of Capul.

Oh, this is a thing. Yes. He's not going to be the only one who thinks this. And so he then wants to hurry back. And Arroute, he encounters his competitor, got Francois de la Roque. in Newfoundland and the commander orders him to turn back. Cartier, who's obviously anxious to convert his cargo into cash as quickly as possible, he thinks he's hit the mother load.

Yeah, he thinks he's hit the mother load. And if he can get back to France before this other guy sort of claims the plaudits from the king, he's going to be made for the rest of his life. So poor old de Roque is deprived now of Cartier's assistant, spends a horrendous winter in Newfoundland, get scurvy like everybody else. So this third voyage, which should be intended for exploration, even colonisation,

proves a failure because the gold and diamonds that Cartier thinks he's discovered is nothing more than iron pyrite in quartz. And frankly, it serves him right after a baby. It bloody does. They call it fools gold for a reason, you know. Yeah. So it's worth nothing. So it's a dodgy start.

It's bad. It's bad. It would be off-putting, one might say. But at least as far as the French concerned, And they've now know that this land is there. They've got an idea of the sort of people who are living there. This is the beginnings of French Canada. And the long story of why, to this day, Canada is bilingual.

Bilingual, indeed. And actually, you know, he's not going to be the only person who thinks he's found gold and diamonds. Others, and we'll come to that in later episodes, we'll think the same thing, that Canada is the land of jewels and gold. But the thing they have found, which they think is far less exciting than the gold, but they nonetheless do bring back is fur, fur, fair, fair, which is going to be such a big deal in the next episode. And they hardly notice it. It hardly appears in the journals. No, it's just nothing. No, it's just, it's hats. There's some furry hats, they found.

But in actual fact, this is going to be the thing that propels the colonisation of so much of Canada. And it is the thing which will actually establish the economy of that colonial area. Well, I mean, you know, the economy, riches for others, but not for the people who live. live there. Can I just round off? I mean, the next episode is going to be all about fur, and it's going to be all about Paris's passion that kind of sends more and more people

over to Canada and how they then establish deeper and deeper roots. Cartier's thing, though, I think we can say, is not hugely successful. He doesn't get another royal commission. He has the maps, though, that will help later voyages over when they do go back with an aim, which will be

the fair trade. But if you go to San Malo now, a place where you have... Which I strongly recommend. Which I strongly recommend. Have you seen the statue of him? I haven't. There's a statue of Cartier. So, look, that's the start, the stuttering start to French colonisation.

As William said, join us for the next episode when you find out that they make a second try, which is altogether more successful. What you really should want to do is join our club, because it keeps us paying our bills, and allows you to read our wonderful newsletter. but more importantly, binge listen to the whole story of our Canada series, which will be available now. Just go to Empirepodukuk.com. That was exactly what I meant. Empirepodukuk.com is exactly the hyperlink you're after. Apart from keeping the lights on for us,

we really love the community that we've got in the club, so do come and be a part of it. We would love you too. Anyway, till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Duremberg.