Samuel de Champlain "The Father of New France

New France

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...

", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

 on July 3, 1608.

Born into a family of master mariners, Champlain, while still a young man of 16, began exploring North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 in 1603 under the guidance of François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé , said Du Pont , was a French navigator , an early fur trader and explorer in the New World.Gravé Du Pont is known to have traded furs in the New France, since maybe 1580, surely before 1599, reaching Trois-Rivières in...

. From 1604-1607, Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal

Port Royal, Nova Scotia

Port Royal was the capital of Acadia from 1605 to 1710 and is now a town called Annapolis Royal in the western part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Initially Port Royal was located on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia, at the site of the present reconstruction of the...

, Acadia

Acadia

Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...

 (1605).