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Norsemen settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around 1000 AD.[No further European exploration occurred until 1497.
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seafarer John Cabot explored and claimed Canada's Atlantic coast in the name of King Henry VII of England. Then Basque and Portuguese mariners established seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast in the early 16th century.[
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In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence River, where, on July 24, he planted a 10-metre (33 ft) cross bearing the words "Long Live the King of France" and took possession of the territory (known as the colony of Canada) in the name of King Francis I.
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In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony.
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French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608). Among the colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana.The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th-century over contro
