Toponymie | Canton de Potton | Place Names

Who would not recognize the origin of this street name?  Students of École du Baluchon, in Mansonville, suggested it.

Jacques Cartier (1441-1557), navigator and explorer born in Saint-Malo in France, was a frequent visitor to Canada (comparatively speaking), given that he made three trips here from 1534 to 1541, almost 5 centuries ago.  It is likely that Cartier was a companion of Giovanni de Verrazzano on an expedition to South America and the northeast coast of America, in 1524 and 1528.  This may have been his first trip.  King Franà§ois I of France commissioned Jacques Cartier to voyage to the New World on a quest for gold and other riches in addition to finding a new route to Asia.  On his first journey, Jacques Cartier explored the Baie des Chaleurs and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but came no further than Anticosti Island. 

The second voyage, in 1535, brought him to Hochelaga (Montreal).  Jacques Cartier is credited with giving Montreal its name, having called the mountain Mont Royal for the King of France.  On the same trip, he wintered in Stadacona (which became Quebec).  After leaving the western point of Anticosti Island, he took note of the lands left to explore: “ devers le su qui est une terre a haultes montaignes à  merveilles » (“to the south is a land of wondrous high mountains”).  The “high lands” were those plunging into the sea around Mont Saint-Louis and Mont Saint-Pierre.

In 1541, the first French colony in America was established by Jacques Cartier, on order from Jean-Franà§ois de La Rocque de Roberval, on the left bank of the mouth of the Rivière de Cap-Rouge.  There he established two connecting forts: one at the top of the promontory and the other at the bottom.  Cartier also made a second trip to Hochelaga and returned to Cap-Rouge, where he spent a difficult winter fraught with scurvy, disease and extreme cold.  He left the colony to return to France in early June 1542, but met Roberval, who had left France, en route for Canada, in April 1542.  The two crossed paths in Newfoundland in the middle of June, and Roberval insisted that Cartier follow him back to Cap-Rouge.  Cartier declined, and left Newfoundland in the night of June 18-19^th, 1542, to return to France.  He arrived in Saint-Malo at the beginning of September.  Jacques Cartier then learned that the “gold” found in Canada was nothing but iron pyrite, and his diamonds, only quartz or mica.  The formidable rapids at Hochelaga in the St. Lawrence River had put an end to the dreams of a new route to Asia.^[1]