Champlain Founds Quebec

July 3, 1608

With twenty-eight men and a small fortified storehouse beneath the cliff at the narrowing of the Saint Lawrence, Samuel de Champlain laid out the Habitation de Quebec. Only eight survivors would see the spring. New France had a capital, and the fur trade a northern gateway, though the settlement clung to survival for years through alliance with the Algonquin and Montagnais.