First section Working off of what Faranmax and I spoke about above I ve taken a stab at condensing the first of the three sections that pertaining to pre colombian history exploration colonisation the conquest and the War of 1812 This section header is only a divider for the talk page and will not exist in the article so let s not panic about sections was Canada s most important industry until the 19th century Traditionally Canada s Aboriginal peoples hold that they have resided on their lands since the beginning of time while archaeological studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon from 26 500 years ago and in southern Ontario from 9 500 years ago The first Europeans to arrive were the Vikings who settled briefly at L Anse aux Meadows around 1000 AD after which there was no further trans Atlantic contact until John Cabot explored Canada s east coast for England in 1497 followed by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534 In the early 17th century Samuel de Champlain founded the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal and Quebec City from which the French colonists extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and the present day Maritimes while French fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes Hudson Bay and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana Concurrently the English established fishing outposts on Newfoundland and established the Thirteen Colonies to the south on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec in 1759 part of the Seven Years War Due to the close proximity of these two European powers a series of wars over both territory and the fur trade errupted between 1689 and 1763 such as the French and Iroquois Wars the four Intercolonial Wars and the Seven Years War Via the peace treaties that concluded these conflicts Acadia and most of New France was ceeded to Britain which then through the 1763 Royal Proclamation carved the Province of Quebec out of New France annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia and placed all the former French territories under common law six years later St John s Island became a separate colony By 1774 the Quebec Act reestablished civil law in Quebec and reaffirmed the right of its population to practice their Catholic faith as well as expanding the province s territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley all of which helped to fuel the American Revolution From that conflict some 50 000 persons loyal to the Crown fled to Canada where new regions were created to accomodate them New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia and Quebec was divided into Upper an