ed to trading with Europeans. The sailors gave them number of trinkets of small value to win their friendship. Next year Cartier returned with three ships up the St. Lawrence river to the village of Stadacona, (present-day Quebec). He intended to resume his exploration of the continent's interior, in the hopes of finding the highly south after North West passage.
             In his third voyage of 1541, Cartier intended to set up a permanent colony on the North American continent, just 15km upstream from Stadacona. The Amerindians, upset with the infringement of their land rights by the French, which they did not recognise, was reported to have killed at least 35 of the settlers in the first winter. Many of the other colonists, largely unprepared for the harsh Canadian winter, died in their first winter mostly from scurvy. So, the harsh climate, hostile relations with the Native peoples, and the failure to find gold or diamonds combined to give the French a very poor initial image of Canada.
             Although some of them hostile at first, the Native peoples, amazed at the range and abundance of material goods that the newcomers possessed, were willing to trade many animal skins in exchange for the Europeans' weapons and tools such as steel axes, copper cooking pots, steel knives, steel awls and needles for sewing and so on, all of which made everyday life more convenient. Yet, if the Native peoples initially regarded the European newcomers with awe (interpreting their possession of metal objects as evidence of some great supernatural power), the amazement quickly passed. They soon noted the slowness of the French in mastering Native languages and in learning to use canoes, snowshoes, and everything else that seemed commonplace.
             The French fur trade did not really begin until the mid sixteenth century, when French explorers were able to establish a powerful and lasting presence in what is now the north-eastern United States and Canada. ...