Jacques Cartier Trivia
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50 free Jacques Cartier trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence looking for China, found a village called kanata, and gave a country its name by mistake. This quiz covers the Breton navigator's three voyages and their consequences. The easy questions ask which king sent him, which river he explored, what he was hoping to find, which two Iroquoian towns he visited and how Canada got its name. From there it moves into the details: the great auks slaughtered on the Bird Islands, the ten-metre cross at Gaspé, the chief's two sons carried off to France, the crowd of a thousand at Hochelaga, the rapids named for China, the winter frozen in under the Rock of Quebec, and the tree bark tea that saved 85 men from scurvy. The harder end is for history readers: Bishop Le Veneur's introduction at Mont Saint-Michel, the 1532 union of Brittany and France, Donnacona's kidnapping and death, the Kingdom of Saguenay, Roberval's appointment over Cartier's head, Charlesbourg-Royal and its cattle and cabbages, the diamonds that were quartz, the night-time escape from Roberval off Newfoundland, Cartier's later work as a Portuguese interpreter, the 2006 rediscovery of the lost colony, the ships Grande Hermine and Émérillon, and the bridge renamed for the 400th anniversary. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Cartier, his companions and the places he named, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Samuel de Champlain, Canada and age of exploration quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Breton port was Jacques Cartier born in 1491?
Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo was his home port on all three voyages; no authentic portrait of him is known, and the face familiar today was painted from imagination nearly three centuries after his death.
Q 02Which French king commissioned Cartier's voyages?
Francis I
Francis I refused to accept that the pope had shared out the New World between Spain and Portugal, and Cartier's voyages were his way of staking a French claim.
Q 03The bishop who recommended Cartier to the king was also abbot of which famous French abbey?
Mont-Saint-Michel
Mont-Saint-Michel's abbot, Jean Le Veneur, vouched for Cartier to the king in 1532, arguing that a pilot who had already sailed to Brazil and Newfoundland could lead ships to new lands.
Q 04What was Cartier hoping to find when he set sail in April 1534?
A western passage to the East Indies
A western passage to the East Indies was the dream, though the royal order that paid for the voyage spoke more bluntly of finding lands said to be full of gold.
Q 05Cartier called the barren north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 'the land God gave to' which biblical figure?
Cain
Cain, the exiled murderer of Genesis: Cartier grumbled that along the whole coast he had not seen one cartload of good earth, only stones and crags fit for wild beasts.
Q 06Which now-extinct bird did Cartier's crews kill by the boatload on rocky islands in 1534?
Great auk
Great auk: the fat, flightless seabirds could not escape, and Cartier's men filled two boats with them; later sailors kept up the slaughter until the last known pair was killed in 1844.
Q 07Which people most likely traded furs with Cartier at Chaleur Bay in July 1534?
Mi'kmaq
Mi'kmaq paddlers held up furs on sticks to show they wanted to barter; the swap that followed is often counted as the first recorded trade between the French and the peoples of Canada.
Q 08What does the name Cartier gave Chaleur Bay mean?
Bay of warmth
Bay of warmth, or Baie des Chaleurs: Cartier explored it in early July 1534, and the name was fair, since the bay really is warmer than the rest of the gulf around it.
Q 09Where did Cartier raise a thirty-foot cross on 24 July 1534 to claim the land for France?
Gaspé Bay
Gaspé Bay: the cross carried a shield of fleurs-de-lis and the words 'Long Live the King of France', and a stone cross stands in the town today to mark where France's claim began.
Q 10How did the local chief react when Cartier raised a cross claiming the land for France?
He paddled out to protest
He paddled out to protest, pointing at the land to show it was his; Cartier soothed him with gifts and the story that the cross was only a landmark for ships.
Q 11As his crew lay dying in 1536, what did Cartier fix to a tree for them to pray before?
An image of the Virgin
An image of the Virgin was set against a tree a bowshot from the fort, and every man who could still walk went to it in procession; Cartier vowed a pilgrimage if he lived to see France again.
Q 12After what did Cartier name a small bay Saint-Laurent in August 1535?
That day's feast
That day's feast was St Lawrence's: Cartier named the bay on 10 August, and mapmakers later stretched the little bay's name over the whole gulf and the great river beyond.
Q 13Which Iroquoian village did Cartier reach in 1535 on the site of today's Quebec City?
Stadacona
Q 21Whom did Cartier kidnap in May 1536 to tell the king about a land of gold?
Chief Donnacona
Chief Donnacona told the French court of a land rich in gold and rubies and was kept at the king's expense, but he never saw home again: he died in France around 1539.
Q 22What was the name of the mythical rich land Cartier sought on his later voyages?
Kingdom of Saguenay
Kingdom of Saguenay: a captive chief filled it with gold, rubies and white men dressed in wool; no such land existed, but his tales helped win royal backing for another voyage.
Q 23What did Cartier promise the Iroquoians as he sailed off with their captured chief in 1536?
His return within a year
Stadacona's chief tried gifts and warnings to stop Cartier sailing further upriver, because he wanted to keep the French trade for his own people instead of sharing it with the larger town of Hochelaga.
Q 14What did Cartier do when the people of Hochelaga brought him their sick to be healed?
Read the Gospel of John aloud
Read the Gospel of John aloud: though no priest, he recited its opening lines while touching each of the sick, then read out the Passion, to a crowd that had no interpreter to tell them what it meant.
Q 15Which mountain did Cartier climb and name during his visit to Hochelaga in 1535?
Mount Royal
Mount Royal: townspeople guided him to the summit to show him the country, and Montreal is generally thought to take its name from his 'mont Royal'.
Q 16The rapids that stopped Cartier near Hochelaga later took the name Lachine, said to mock which explorer's quest?
Robert de La Salle
Robert de La Salle held land beside the rapids and set off in 1669 to find a route to China; the mocking nickname 'la Chine' is said to have stuck to his estate, and the rapids later took it too.
Q 17Where did Cartier's fleet lie frozen from mid-November 1535 to mid-April 1536?
The mouth of the St. Charles River
The mouth of the St. Charles River, below the heights of Quebec, held the ships from November to April; the crew built a fort beside them, and snow lay four feet deep on the banks.
Q 18What disease ravaged Cartier's men in the winter of 1535–36?
Scurvy
Scurvy struck the Iroquoians first and then the French; by mid-February barely ten of Cartier's 110 men were well enough to nurse the rest, and 25 died before a cure was found.
Q 19What cured Cartier's men of the winter sickness?
A drink from the bark of the annedda tree
A drink from the bark of the annedda tree, an evergreen, worked within days; the crew stripped a whole tree in about a week, and Cartier called the cure a miracle.
Q 20Who revealed the cure that saved Cartier's dying crew in early 1536?
One of the chief's sons
One of the chief's sons, Domagaya, had been sick himself days earlier; seeing him well again, Cartier asked how, pretending the cure was for a servant so the Iroquoians would not learn how weak the French were.
His return within a year, laden with royal gifts, was the promise that calmed the crowd; it was never kept, and of the ten Iroquoians taken to France only one young girl was still alive five years later.
Q 24Why did Cartier sail for Canada in May 1541 without Roberval, the expedition's commander?
His artillery had not arrived
His artillery had not arrived, and the king wanted ships at sea, so Roberval sent Cartier ahead; the commander did not catch up for a year, by which time Cartier was already heading home.
Q 25Where did the king let Cartier find some of the settlers for his 1541 colony?
In French prisons
In French prisons: volunteers for a Canadian winter were scarce, so the king authorised the taking of convicts, some fifty of them for Cartier's own ships.
Q 26What did Cartier name the fortified settlement he built at Cap-Rouge in 1541?
Charlesbourg-Royal
Charlesbourg-Royal had two forts, one by the river and one on the cliff above; Cartier's men sowed cabbages, turnips and lettuce, and the seedlings were up within a week.
Q 27What did the 'diamonds' and 'gold' Cartier shipped home turn out to be?
Quartz crystals and iron pyrites
Quartz crystals and iron pyrites, or fool's gold, were all the barrels held, and the letdown gave French a proverb: 'as false as Canadian diamonds'.
Q 28How did the Iroquoians near his base try to scare Cartier out of sailing upriver in 1535?
Men dressed as devils
Men dressed as devils, wrapped in dog skins with blackened faces and long horns, drifted past the ships in a canoe as a warning from the gods; the show had no effect, and Cartier sailed for Hochelaga anyway.
Q 29How did Cartier part from Roberval off Newfoundland in June 1542?
He slipped away under cover of darkness
He slipped away under cover of darkness, defying Roberval's order to turn back to the colony; it was his last voyage, and he was never trusted with a long expedition again.
Q 30By the fullest account, Roberval, Cartier's commander, marooned his young relative Marguerite de La Rocque in 1542 for what?
Taking a lover aboard
Taking a lover aboard is the offence in André Thevet's fuller account; the Queen of Navarre's tale has the man put ashore and Marguerite joining him. In both she outlives him and gets home to France.