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How Canada Got its Name
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Iroquoian Origin
When Jacques Cartier arrived in the lower St. Lawrence River on his second voyage in 1535, he asked Domagaya and Taignoagny, the sons of Iroquois chief Donnacona what lay up river. "Canada" ["kanata"], they replied, meaning, "Our Settlement".
From the repetition of the word, Cartier thought at first they were referring to the entire country. On August 13, 1535, his guides showed him “the way to the mouth of the great river of Hochelaga and the route towards Canada.”
On September 7, 1535, they arrived at the Île d'Orléans which he noted was “where the province and territory of Canada begins.” The next day Cartier moored his ships in the river Sainte-Croix (Saint-Charles), at the mouth of the stream called Lairet, and feasted with Donnacona, who welcomed his sons back from France.
The first time we see the name "Canada" used on a map is on two beautiful charts drawn in Dieppe, France, in 1546 and 1547.
The first chart, by Pierre Descelliers, shows the name Canada over the north shore of the St. Lawrence. I believe the name was added later. The second, by Nicholas Vallard, is quite precise. It shows the name "Canada" applied to the "Rio do Canada" and the Iroquois town at the mouth of the St. Charles River by Québec.
The "Kanata" that Jacques Cartier saw was likely a true Iroquois village, with corn fields and cleared land called deer yards that the people used to lure wild game. I believe it stretched from the St. Charles valley up to the fresh water spring at what the French came to call Charlesbourg.
Note the other names, including Stadacona, upriver, the Île d'Orléans, Île aux Coudres and the Saguenay at bottom right. Hochelaga (Montreal) is at the far west, but not prominent.
The palisaded fort in the expanded picture is probably Charlesbourg-Royale, built by Cartier or Roberval at Cap Rouge. Note that Stadacona is not Quebec. It is upriver on the map, likely a nice sheltered spot with good food resources. Maybe present day Donnaconna, but more likely Portneuf or Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade, where winter fishing is still popular.
This map also accurately shows many of the dangerous reefs around the Île d'Orléans charted in some detail, along with the best passage to Quebec hugging the south shore. Clearly a Basque or Portuguese pilot, who knew the river well, was on board Cartier's ship. A clue that the pilot was Portuguese or Basque, and helped with the production of the map, is in the naming of Cartier's Lac Angoulème (Lac St-Pierre) as Lago do Golesme and the river as the "Rio do Canada".
The Dieppe charts are based on an earlier map that Giovanni Benedetto drafted for Charles de Cossé, Comte de Brissac, Marechal of France, soon after 1534. But they show Hochelaga, Quebec and the Saguenay in far less detail.
Iroquois Use Today
It is likely that the St. Lawrence Iroquois were able to bring their civilization to the region of Quebec at the time of Cartier's visit because of a period of global warming that allowed them to grow corn, beans and squash. Before Champlain arrived the climate had cooled, and they were forced to move back upriver. They may also have been weakened by European diseases and attacks from the Mi'kmaq.
According to First Nations historian Conroy Jacques from Kahnawake, the Iroquois people still use the word Canada or Kanata today.
- Kahnawake [Caughnawaga] means Kanata Wake - "the camp (settlement) by the rapids".
- Kanesetake [Oka], or Kanata Setake, means "the camp (settlement) on the sandy beach (or at the foot of the mountain)".
- Kanata Kowa - "The Big Town" - used by some Iroquois today to describe New York City, where many have worked on high steel.
- Kanuchsa It has been suggested that this means "one who lives in a kanata". But the word may mean simply "house". Could this be the origin of the word, "canuck"?
- Kaniatarowanenneh - The name used by the Mohawk for the St. Lawrence River. It means, roughly, "our big waterway".
- In other Iroquoian languages, the words for "town" or "village" are similar: the Mohawk use nekantaa, the Seneca iennekanandaa, and the Onondaga use ganataje.
SOURCE: extracted from Canada Channel © Alastair Sweeny & Northern Blue Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Map © Regents of the University of California
Use Before Confederation
As Confederation approached, the citizens and politicians of British North America discussed a number of potential names for the new nationality. The rejects:
- Albertsland (after Prince Albert, in the stamp)
- Albionora (Albion -England - of the North)
- Borealia (Latin for "northern land")
- Britannia (after Britain)
- Cabotia (after explorer John Cabot)
- Colonia
- Efisga (a combination of the first letters of England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Aboriginal lands)
- Hochelaga (Iroquoian village on the site of present-day Montreal)
- Mesopelagia (Greek for "land between the seas")
- Norland
- Superior
- Transatlantia
- Tuponia (an acrostic for the United Provinces of North America)
- Ursalia (Latin, land of bears)
- Vesperia (Latin for "land of the evening star")
- Victorialand (after the Queen)
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