“If we compare him with the other explorers and founders of that age he stands above them all in the range of achievement” –Edward Gaylord Bourne, Introduction As the first explorer to provide an accurate and detailed account of Nova Scotia and New England, Samuel de Chaplain is synonymous with early observations of North American Aboriginal peoples, interactions between New World inhabitants and European colonial powers, and the founding of New France. Chaplain’s meticulous and fascinating historical records of his seventeenth-century explorations continue to illuminate early life in North America, hundreds of years later.