Jacques Cartier Biography

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a French explorer and is viewed as important for he was the first European to describe and map the shores, and gulf of the Saint Lawrence river, and most importantly for giving the country it’s name. Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Male a small port on the coast of Brittany. Cartier was a respectable mariner and greatly improved his social status by marrying Mary Catherine, a member of a leading family.

In 1534 Jean le Veneur, a bishop and abbot of Saint-Malo, introduced Cartier to King Francis I. Jean le Veneur also gave Cartier a good name and was commissioned by the king on April 20, 1534 to find a western passage to Asia.

Ten days later Cartier sets off on his first voyage to the “new world” with only two ships. Within three weeks of smooth sailing, Cartier and his crew arrive in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador. He has been given two missions by the king. First, find a route to the Orient, also know as East Asia, and find precious gems and metals to profit France. He recognizes Newfoundland, as there have been previous explorers to set foot here. From there he chooses to go further and sails around the north side of the island and then down west towards the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They end up spending the summer exploring the new land and searching for the route to Asia. In June they discover Prince Edward Island and by July they stumble upon the Gaspe Peninsula. It was here that Cartier raised a cross, claimed the land for France, and most importantly met the Iroquois. The Iroquois tribe had come to fish and the chief, Donnacona, happened to be present. Cartier and Donnacona traded many goods; Cartier gave the Iroquois knives, glass, beads, combs and rings. In turn, Donnacona gave the French food from his village. Cartier and his crew stayed in the area over the summer months, come winter they had began already arrived back in France. Before leaving however, Cartier took captive Donnacona’s two sons to show the king. He arrived in September 1534, believing that he had indeed discovered Asia.

The following year Cartier set sail once more on May 19th this time with three ships, 110 men and Donnacona’s two sons.  The two Iroquois men guided Cartier to their village, Stadacona. After a short stop Cartier started sailing even further up the Saint Lawrence River and met another group of Aboriginal people living on a island with the name of, Hochelaga. Hochelaga was far more impressive than the small village of Stadacona; over a thousand men came to greet the Frenchmen. There Cartier climbed a nearby hill and named it Mount Royal, or Montreal. When trying to sail further upstream fast rapids stopped him. He was so sure that he had reached China that he named the rapids La Chine. He then returned back to Stadacona and spent the winter there with his crew. When he set sail for France in the spring he decided to bring Donnacona, and his two sons. Unfortunately, all three men died in France.

In 1541 Cartier set sail one last time. This time, any thought of finding a passage to Asia was forgotten and instead replaced by goals of finding the “Kingdom of Saguenay”, a legendary place filled with gold, and to establish a permanent settlement along the St. Lawrence River. On May 23 Cartier leaves the docks with 5 ships and an impressive crew of 1500. Whilst building a small camp a few kilometers upriver from Stadacona, now Quebec, Cartier decided to head back upriver to Hochelaga and then onto China and the Kingdom of Saguenay. The men also began collecting what they thought to be gold and diamonds, but happened only to be quartz and iron. When Cartier returned back to his settlement he found 35 of his men dead from an attack by the natives. They no longer made friendly visits and were always prowling about. Cartier finally set sail for France in early June 1542 believing he had a boatload of diamonds and gold. After arriving in France on October he never set sail again. Nor did any other Frenchmen for nearly 70 years.

Just some writing...

Paragraph Writing

Hardik Shrestha 7HF

Topic: If I won the lottery.

If I won the lottery I would most certainly donate a hefty amount of it to Nepal. With the recent earthquakes Nepal is faring far worse than ever before.  There are over 8 500 people dead and more than twice as many injured. Thousands are homeless and worst of all, hopeless. The money would be used to provide aid, food, and shelter and renew Nepal’s once functional infrastructure. With the cash Nepal would bounce back to it’s previous place in the world hierarchy, possibly higher. In fact, I believe that with enough willpower and perseverance all things are possible, however I acknowledge that with money, the process would go quite a bit faster. In conclusion, the money would be used to help Nepal regain it’s footing, ignite a spark that would result in a great fire remobilising hope, and overcome it’s current challenges.

Topic: If I won the lottery.

If I won the lottery I would ensure the best possible education for my family, and myself including any future generations. I would likely study physics as it has always peaked my curiosity, for obvious reasons. The weak but massive force of gravity to the possible higher dimensions folded into the realm of our perceived reality; physics is what turns science fiction into math. Currently, I am eager but not yet ready to join the ranks of physicists. If I won the lottery I am almost certain that I will have the power to change this sad fact. I would study everything from sub-atomic particles (particle physics) to the behaviour of the material as an entire universe spiralling down through the process of entropy (astrophysics). In conclusion, I would further educate my self and anyone I held a deep relationship with.

Topic: Goals for Grade 7.

I hold the strong notion that every child has an underlying goal in grade 7, school, life as a whole in fact: Do the best possible. I myself hold this goal and know that at the heart of even the “worst” or “dumbest” child’s mind there is this notion, this goal, an ambition, an objective, a target. This is my goal for Grade 7, and as mentioned before presumably for the rest of my life. To do the best possible means that even if you end up being worse than a peer, you have done the best you can. Trying the best you possibly can ends up resulting in your own satisfaction and enlightenment. It forces you to unleash your inner passions and makes sure that you do not procrastinate or give up. In conclusion, my goal for Grade 7 is to do everything to the best of my abilities.

Topic: Perfect day.

Side note: This has been done in essay format.

The perfect day, is a dream for most, for a select few, its every day of their lives. Selfishness is a large motivator when it comes to the perfect day. Many people come to assume that if they were a tad bit luckier they would have the ability to enjoy their lives. They forget to add their friends into the equation and never give a second thought about repetitiveness and boredom. Instead of wondering what I as an individual may require to achieve a perfect day let us focus on what the perfect day may look like for the world at large.

Our inquiries would have to start the day before as a good night sleep is on of the best contributors to a perfect day as it generally has you more energized and has the habit to put you in a better mood. A poll conducted in 2011 found that most people are unsatisfied with the amount of sleep they receive. Furthermore it concluded that the participants who had the least sleep on average also had a darker outlook on the world. They were more tired, angry, irritated and easy to provoke. Not a good base for a perfect day at all. This is why, on a perfect day every able man, woman and child should receive a minimum of seven hours of rest at night; with the option to sleep for as long as sixteen hours.

To have a worldwide perfect day, one would need the collaboration of all the members in all their separate groups of friends to behave positively and comfortably. Being put down isn’t acceptable on a perfect day and would therefore require the extinction of bullying and harassment as a whole. However, one can presume that this cannot be achieved if the people are left in their normal habitats. At their wish they should be able to move to another workplace or school. Granted, volunteers will provide this service. These volunteers are the people who are also supposedly happy and content with the idea of helping strangers to become more satisfied. In short, it would require the movement of possibly a billion people worldwide wanting to have a better day.

When thinking about a perfect day, the word fun comes to mind. By definition to become happy one requires a stamp of approval to have fun. Not literally but if something horrible had happened one may not wish to give him or herself the chance to have fun and be happy. On a perfect day a situation that led to fun being cancelled will have to be avoided at the cost of partial amusement. Perhaps one needed to finish re-construction on a park, this would cut down partially on the workers amusement and also affect any children’s and adults who regularly used said park. The bottom line here is that on a perfect day one requires fun.

In conclusion to have a worldwide perfect day one requires three main things, sleep, friends, and fun. I believe this is a fairly correct analogy and am willing to conduct a experiment featuring volunteers and peers wanting to try it out alongside me.

Historic Dinner.

Dinner for Two: Language Activity

Hardik Shrestha 7HF

Leonardo Da Vinci

If I somehow had the chance, I would definitely invite the famous inventor and artist, Leonardo Da Vinci, over for dinner. One of the most diversely talented people to have ever lived would be invited over to my 15th century mansion and enjoy a relaxed night of gourmet food and the best entertainment. We would talk about his technical ingenuity and his many masterpieces, including the Mona Lisa.

Only the most loyal of servants would serve Da Vinci and myself a freshly made four-course meal. The dinner would start off with servants bringing in scalloped potatoes fresh from the wood oven. The potatoes would also be served with cheese curd and a bit of pork to give it diversity. Here, a small hidden Orchestra would begin to play a joyful tune to symbolize how amazing the night would be. During this time I would only do the most elementary of talking. Next we would have leek salad, also freshly made, and combined with fennel and capes. At present the drinks, beer and water, would be brought in for Leonardo and myself. Here the music would slow down quite a bit and become but a memory. I have a strong notion that this would make Leonardo relax and feel more comfortable; after all he is enjoying gourmet food from around the entire planet while listening to a few of the most talented musicians alive. At this stage in the meal I would start up a bit of small talk, perhaps asking about his future ideas and plans. The main meal would consist of fire-roasted turkey; together with a side of spinach pie topped with thinly cut baby carrots. As of present the musicians would play deeper tunes and really bring out the fierceness in the turkey. By now we would be deep into the conversation and would have moved on to talking about the Mona Lisa as it is a fairly relevant topic and goes in expertly with the rest of the dinner plan. The dessert would be the finest ever served to Leonardo Da Vinci, as it would contain a special treat he had only heard of, chocolate. The servants would bring in chocolate croissants with chocolate glace, not only would they smell amazing but also taste marvellous, and raspberry compote with fresh mint leaves. Finally the servants would bring in Dark Chocolate bark topped with white melted chocolate. The Orchestra will have resumed the joyful theme of the appetizer and will slowly fade away into the night. The rest of the night would be spent with quite chatter and loud laughs as Leonardo Da Vinci and I conversed into the nightfall.

As mentioned briefly above, I would chat mostly about his technological creations and models as well as his artistic talents and pieces, namely the Mona Lisa. During the appetizer we would converse about basic topics, mostly to break the ice and make the dinner a little more enjoyable. During the Entrée we would talk about his future plans, mainly about his flying machine, armoured vehicle, solar power machine, and calculator. Unfortunately most of these were hardly feasible to build during the 14th and 15th century and were all but mere thoughts. I would mostly question him of his calculator, or as he enjoyed calling it, his “adding machine”. On the machine, to figure out something as simple as, 2+17+5, we would need to enter in, “2” “plus sign” “17” “plus sign” “5” “plus sign” “T”. The machine design was in fact used in American offices until calculators in the 70’s and eventually personal computers in the 90’s fazed them out. Next, as we moved on to the main course we would talk about the Mona Lisa, which presently holds the titles for best known, most visited, most written about, most sung about and most parodied work of art in the world. I may pick up a few techniques and tips about painting and have an enjoyable time having an artist describe a painting he used 14 years of his life to perfect. Lastly, after the dessert we would converse mostly about his notebook, something know to contain a few of the most intriguing things on the planet. I would ask if he realized that it was as diverse as a list of groceries to a war machine to hover shoes.

I would definitely benefit greatly if I were to have this amazingly unreal dinner in real life. It is obvious that I would pick up quite a few tips, as he would be much older than myself, and probably quite a few more ways talented and experienced as well. Specifically, I am expecting to expand my knowledge of mechanics, applied physics and the basis of artificial intelligence. At times, I feel regret as we will never be able to bring Leonardo into the future and have his thoughts on our current knowledge of the universe. Back on topic, I would also be looking to further my extremely tiny sphere of knowledge of art. I feel as though, I cannot even begin to estimate how beneficial this dinner would be as it has never been or ever will be done. If nothing else, it will be very, very interesting.

In conclusion, I would treat Leo to a satisfactory four-course meal and talk about his life’s work. This would benefit me greatly, and I would like to think that it would benefit Leonardo greatly as well. A night with Leonardo together with a 15th century mansion and gourmet food, simply put cannot be beat. The only possible way to make this better would be to have more people over for dinner!