Explorers
Henry Hudson, in 1611, was one of the first Europeans to sail into what is now known as Hudson Bay. The first European to reach present-day central and southern Manitoba was Sir Thomas Button, who travelled upstream along the Nelson River and Lake Winnipeg in 1612 and may have reached somewhere along the edge of the prairies where he reported seeing a bison. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de La Vérendrye, visited the Red River Valley in the 1730s as part of opening the area for French exploration and exploitation. As French explorers entered the area, a Montreal-based company, the North West Company, began trading with the Métis.
The Nonsuch, a British ship, sailed into Hudson Bay in 1668–1669, becoming the first trading vessel to reach the area; that voyage led to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was given absolute control of the entire Hudson Bay watershed by the British government. This watershed was named Rupert's Land, after Prince Rupert, who helped to subsidize the Hudson's Bay Company. York Factory was founded in 1684 after the original fort of the Hudson's Bay Company, Fort Nelson (built in 1682), was destroyed by rival French traders. Fur trading forts were built by both the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company along the many rivers and lakes, and there was often fierce competition with each other in more southern areas.
There are a few possible sources for the name "Manitoba". The more likely is that it comes from Cree or Ojibwe and means "strait of the Manitou (spirit)". It may also be from the Assiniboine for "Lake of the Prairie".
Read more about this topic: History Of Manitoba
Famous quotes containing the word explorers:
“The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear the atmosphere of smoke.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Such were the first rude beginnings of a town. They spoke of the practicability of a winter road to the Moosehead Carry, which would not cost much, and would connect them with steam and staging and all the busy world. I almost doubted if the lake would be there,—the self-same lake,—preserve its form and identity, when the shores should be cleared and settled; as if these lakes and streams which explorers report never awaited the advent of the citizen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)