Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain (1574–1635) was a French navigator, cartographer and colonial administrator, known as the "Father of New France." He first sailed to North America in 1603 and founded Quebec City in 1608. Over his lifetime he crossed the Atlantic more than twenty times and drew the earliest accurate maps of the eastern North American coast and the Great Lakes region. His travel accounts record voyages, geographical observations and colonial experiences, making them important sources for the early history of North America. Five of his works are held here, including the Oeuvres de Champlain and Voyages of Samuel De Champlain, Volumes 01–03, as well as a narrative of a voyage to the West Indies and Mexico in 1599–1602. These works are chiefly first-hand accounts and nautical records, valuable both as historical sources and as geographical writing, plain in style and attentive to detail. He died in Quebec in 1635.