350 Canada. 



million acres in all, represents, outside of British 

 Columbia, the true forest region of Canada, and at the 

 same time the center of Canadian civilization. 



Although the Cabot brothers discovered Cape Breton 

 and Labrador in 1497 and 1500, the first settlement of 

 Canadian territory was not made until 1541 by French 

 colonists, after the first Captain-General of Canada, 

 Jaques Cartier, the discoverer and explorer of the St. 

 Lawrence (in 1534), had taken possession of the country 

 for Francis I; but not much progress was made until 

 Champlain's arrival in the first years of the next 

 century. Quebec was founded as early as 1608, and 

 Montreal in 1611, but Ottawa dates its first beginnings 

 not farther back than 1800. 



The northern country around Hudson's Bay was, 

 under the name of Rupert's Land (after Prince Rupert, 

 the head of the enterprise), undefined in limits, granted 

 by Charles II, in 1670, to the Hudson's Bay Company, 

 a powerful fur-trading corporation which had not only 

 a commercial monopoly but, except for occasional 

 interference by the French, held absolute govern- 

 mental sway over the country through 200 years, 

 their jurisdiction at one time extending to the Pacific 

 Coast. 



Friction and warfare with the English resulted in 

 the latter acquiring by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, 

 Newfoundland and settling their rights on 'Hudson's 

 Bay. The final conquest of "New France" by the 

 English ended French rule in 1763, but the French 

 colonists remained peacefully, and their descendants 

 form to-day, at least in Quebec, the predominating 



