French explorer and navigator Jacques Cartier, while travelling and charting the Saint Lawrence River, reached the village of Stadacona in July 1534.

[1] At the time, the village chief was Donnacona, who showed Cartier five scalps taken in their war with the Toudaman (likely the Miꞌkmaq), a neighbouring people who had attacked one of their forts the previous spring, killing 200 inhabitants.

[4] Cartier returned to Stadacona with Donnacona's sons on his next voyage in 1535–1536, where he recorded a word they had used to refer to their home: "They call a town, Kanata" (Canada).

[8] Five years later, Cartier came back to Stadacona in 1543 to find the village abandoned and destroyed by an unknown enemy, likely due to devastating wars by the Mohawk of the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee confederacy (Five Nations) to the south situated near Lake Ontario.

[9] Samuel de Champlain later chose the location of the village to establish the colony of l'Habitation, which eventually grew into the city of Québec.