In order to succeed in competing for trade with the Basques, Spanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese based in Tadoussac, Samuel de Champlain proposed a daring plan to his investors: he wanted to establish a permanent trading post upstream from Tadoussac and to spend the winter there.
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| A former soldier turned fur trader and explorer, Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence and established a new trading post at Quebec. (As portrayed in Canada: A People's History)
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Thus, when the snow thawed, he would be ahead of the competition and he could trade on his own with the natives first.
In July 1608, Champlain continued his journey in a light and manoeuvrable craft designed for river travel. He passed Île aux Coudres, Rivière du Gouffre, and Cap Tourmente, which had all been named by Jacques Cartier. Champlain described the coast as a "mountainous and very dreary land." But he was delighted with the Île d'Orléans, which marked, in his words, "the beginning of the lovely and fine land of the great river."
From there, he looked for a site worthy of the settlement he wanted to create, and finally on July 8, he found it. It was an incredibly beautiful site, with its headland sparkling so brightly in the strong sunlight that Jacques Cartier had named it "Cap Diamant", believing that it was studded with precious stones.
Champlain, both a mapmaker and soldier, was above all struck by the strategic advantages of the site.
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| The trading post at Quebec was strategically located to outflank Champlain's competitors. (As portrayed in Canada: A People's History)
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The cliffs rose ninety-eight metres above sea level and he also noted that, at this point, the St. Lawrence was only one kilometre wide.
A battery of cannons could cut off an invader's access to the hinterland and its inexhaustible riches. Champlain decided to call his colony by its Algonkin name, Quebec, which means "the place where the river narrows."
"I looked for a good spot for our settlement. I could not find any place more convenient or better situated than the point of Quebec, so called by the natives, which was covered with nut-trees.
