ependence. The opinion of many non-Natives is that civilization naturally progresses. Just as the Inuit took over the Tunits who were in the Arctic before them, through force and superior technology, the Europeans took away the land from the Natives in Canada. However, with increased contemporary awareness of social and ecological injustices we can look back and see the adverse effects of the fur trade.
             Is it more accurate to claim that the fur trade was the destruction of a nation or the birth of one? Although the fur trade is seen as the base upon which Canada was built, it is also seen as an instrument of destruction for the culture of the Canadian Natives and a threat to an ecological balance among the fur-bearing wild life.
             The development of the fur trade accelerated as Europeans had more and more contact with the Natives in North America. The first known contact between Europeans and Natives is believed to have happened between Vikings and Inuits, in the area the Vikings called Vineland, the present site of Anse-aux-Meadows . These first contacts were uneventful and the relations between the two groups were fair. They continued to trade on a small scale until the Vikings attacked the Natives who retaliated and forced the Vikings to vacate their colony, thus ending the first European relations with the Natives of North America.
             These Viking colonies remained unknown to the rest of Europe, which would not find the New World for another hundred years. The first "discovery" of North America after the Vikings was by Christopher Columbus, who was quickly followed by Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot). Cabot did not find the silks and spices of the Orient he was looking for, but he did find something that ended up being worth even more, the Grand Banks and its cod. The warm and cold currents that meet at the Grand Banks result in an extraordinary richness of fish in the area , and soon after Cabot's discover...