The Colonial Period

When the sun rose out of the broad expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean on the first day of the new century in January 1601, its rays fell on a vast continent whose geography and climate were unknown to Europeans. Though the waters of the coastline had been explored in summertime, and fishermen visited the Grand Banks of Newfoundland annually, no white men were wintering on the shores of the northwestern reaches of the Atlantic Ocean, nor had any previous visitor left any historical record of the extremities of the seasons, aside from a few words of Jacques Cartier about his stayover at Quebec in the winter of 1535–36.