For nearly forty years after the destruction of the colony on the River of May, Frenchmen were too busy fighting one another at home to send any more colonists to America. At length, in 1604, a few Frenchmen settled on an island in the St. Croix River. But the place was so cold and windy that after a few months they crossed the Bay of Fundy and founded the town of Port Royal. The country they called Acadia.

The most famous of these colonists was Champlain. He sailed along the coast southward and westward as far as Plymouth. As he passed by the mouth of Boston harbor, a mist hung low over the water, and he did not see the entrance. Had it been clear he would have discovered Boston harbor and Charles River, and French colonists might have settled there. In 1608 Champlain built a trading-post at Quebec and lived there for many years as governor or chief trader. He soon joined the St. Lawrence Indians in their war parties and explored large portions of the interior. In 1609 he went with the Indians to a beautiful lake. Far away to the east were mountains covered with snow. To the south were other mountains, but with no snow on their tops. To the lake the explorer gave his own name, and we still call it in his honor, Lake Champlain. While there, he drove away with his firearms a body of Iroquois Indians. A few years later he went with another war party to western New York and again attacked the Iroquois.