Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day
The first documented European visits were by Jacques Cartier in 1534. In 1604, a party including Samuel de Champlain visited the mouth of the Saint John River on the eponymous Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Now Saint John, this was later the site of the first permanent European settlement in New Brunswick. French settlement eventually extended up the river to the site of present-day Fredericton. Other settlements in the southeast extended from Beaubassin, near the present-day border with Nova Scotia, to Baie Verte, and up the Petitcodiac, Memramcook, and Shepody Rivers.