when did the french first come to canada
French Canadians From 1535 to the 1690s, the French word Canadien had referred to the First Nations the French had encountered in the St. Lawrence River valley at Stadacona and Hochelaga.[7] At the end of the 17th century, Canadien became an ethnonym distinguishing the inhabitants of Canada from those of France. After World War I, English-Canadians appropriated the term "Canadian" and French-Canadians identified as Québécois instead.[8]
History of Canada There are reports of contact made before the 1492 voyages of Christopher Columbus and the age of discovery between First Nations, Inuit and those from other continents. The Norse, who had settled Greenland and Iceland, arrived around the year 1000 and built a small settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland (carbon dating estimate 990 â€“ 1050 CE)[31] L'Anse aux Meadows is also notable for its connection with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas.[31][32]