Dugua and Champlain decide to move their…
March 1605 CE
Dugua and Champlain decide to move their settlement to the north shore of present-day Annapolis Basin, a sheltered bay on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy which had been discovered by Champlain earlier in the spring of 1605 during a coastal reconnaissance.
Champlain notes in his journals that the bay is of impressive size; he believes it an adequate anchorage for several hundred ships of the French Royal Fleet, if ever necessary.
As such, he names the basin "Port-Royal", the Royal Port; this will be, for many years, the name of both the body of water, and the subsequent French and Acadian settlements in this region.
Nestled against the North Mountain range, the Frenchmen set about constructing a log stockade fortification called a "Habitation."
With assistance from members of the Mi'kmaq Nation and a local chief named Membertou, coupled with the more temperate climate of the fertile Annapolis Valley, the surviving settlers (thirty-six of the seventy-nine have perished) prosper.
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