Gilbert Islands

Norwegians -- though there be very little record of it -- visited the most northern parts of eastern North America over a thousand years ago. Indeed, maybe before the Norwegians, the Irish paid a visit; or maybe, in classic times, the Greeks.1 However, what we do know, pretty well for sure, is that the Norsemen first came to Iceland, then as the decades and centuries unfolded they traveled beyond Iceland, to Greenland; and, then again, beyond Greenland to the shores of Baffin Island and Labrador; and then, swinging south, in their frail vessels, down they came along the upper coast of eastern North America.2 Whatever motivated these northern Europeans to keep extending their northern voyages, and exactly when3 they might have made them, are further matters on which we are obliged to speculate. Was it for timber? Was it new lands for splintered clans? Whatever the extent of their explorations and the timing of them, it is believed that any settlements of the Norsemen were but of a temporary kind and that they made no great impact or contribution to the exploration of North America.

Before we deal with such known explorers as Cabot and Cartier, we must acknowledge the thousands of seafaring men, who, in the process of making a living, came to the shores of America, especially those that are washed by the waters that flow over the great fishing banks of the northwestern Atlantic. Discovery, like everything else in life, is an evolutionary process and one voyage by one family was built upon the knowledge gained on a previous voyage of another family member; only slowly did the Europeans become aware of their courses and their objectives that lie to the east over the ocean.4

The earliest explorers, as we have seen, were the unknown and unsung fisherman of western Europe who likely came to the shores of North America in an earlier millennium; these brave seafarers continued their family traditions up to and beyond 1500s. It is with the 1500s, that one can begin to examine our written history. Among those spunky Frenchmen who first wintered over on the forbidding north-eastern shores of America and in particular on the ironbound shores of Nova Scotia, were to be found: leaders and local managers who were obliged (and, for this, historians will be forever grateful) to file reports to their backers back home. As we will see, the original European explorers of this country were little supported by their respective governments. It was not in the charter of any government back in those days to go forth and to simply explore or to bring "the light of civilization" to other persons of the world. There were no fine ideals that were put into group action; nor was there to be until the English colonies revolted, in 1776, a time which extends beyond that under review. Nonetheless, in these early years of exploration, great expense was incurred to outfit long lasting and self sustaining expeditions. Those who financed these expeditions naturally expected to get their capital back with a profit. The greater the risk (and ocean crossings were very risky, indeed) then the greater the expected return. What were these expected returns? It was trade that drove the exploration of the Americas.5

"Bear in mind that there was still no thought of America being a vast continent; no greater conception existed than that it was a chain of islands, and that along this direction there would be found a short cut to Cathay instead of going south, round the coast of Africa. What, in the minds of the financing merchants, was heartily to be desired may be summed up in one brief formula: a secret path to Oriental riches, north-about, obviating any collision with Portuguese or Spaniards."6

At first, and for many years after, it was Oriental trade, or rather the prospect of it, which drove so many marine explorers west over the vast Atlantic. And then, having fetched up on blocking shores, to sniff up and down the seacoasts like expectant mice, frustrated, but sure that there did exist a way to the spiced cheese westward and beyond. The way had to be there, if only it could be found. All land is surrounded by water, any land on the earth was but an island, and the Americas, it was figured, could not be an exception. So sure that a passage was to be had through the islands of America that they already had a name for it, "The Straight of Anian." But who could have imagined such an island stretching, practically speaking, from one end of the earth to the other? Looking back on history, we now know, that while Columbus "discovered" the Americas, the configuration of this half of the world was not to be fully understood for yet another 300 years. It was only with the expeditions of Cook, George Vancouver (c.1758-98) and Sir Alexander Mackenzie (c.1755-1820) was any geographer able to put a fix on America at its thickest part.

It is June 24th, 1497, a dozen miles or so, east, off the northern part of Cape Breton Island. The alert seaman, while hanging off the shroud of a small sailing vessel, at daybreak, sees something that might well appear to be, to the unobservant, just another line of low lying dark clouds; it lies flat on the western horizon in the reflection of the rising sun; it is of the darkest misty green. For the last few days the seamen aboard the Matthew had observed the telltale signs of land: soaring gulls, the poking heads of seal mammals, bits of floating material, and a western horizon which looks different.

The Matthew was one of two small English sailing vessels which had been "wandering fifty-two days" across the vast Atlantic.7 In the captain's cabin of the Matthew, in a long oaken chart chest, fitted against the bulkhead, with its nautical looking brass fittings; in one of its slender, long and wide drawers -- there lies a Royal declaration, with its lines of black ink swirled upon the dry and whiten sheep skin (slit, smooth and indentured at its edges), with great gobs of red wax with ribbon bound up in it, at its bottom; and, too, at its bottom: the Royal Signature, Henry VII of England. The mission of the men aboard these two small English sailing vessels, in 1497: "to subdue, occupy, and possesse ... to be holden and bounden to Henry of all the fruits, profits, gaines, and commodities to pay unto him in wares or money a fifth part of the capital gaine so gotten."8

In anticipation of fresh water and fresh food, the crew begin to douse their sails and lay out their anchors. A new land had been "discovered," which we have come to call Nova Scotia. John Cabot (1425-c.1500),9 his sons and a small band of English sailors came ashore, it is figured, at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain10 on the northeastern tip of Cape Breton Island; there they built and erected a cross and unfurled the British Royal Standard. Shortly thereafter,