The Northern Approaches to Canada

The following excerpt from the essay by T. J. Oleson and W. L. Morton touches on the link between Europeans’ attempts to find a sea route to Asia and the colonization of North America:

“The prolonged English search for the northwest passage had, however, revealed the great inlet of Hudson Bay and the shoreline of the arctic archipelago on Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. But it did not reveal a passage to Asia or lead to any occupation or exploitation of the Canadian northlands above the St. Lawrence. What was to tie the search for the passage to the occupation of the Canadian north was the westward movement of the Canadian fur trade, itself the development by the French of one aspect of the northern economy in Canada.”