Also making a settlement near what is now Quebec. Some accomplishments of Jacques Cartier were : discovering and naming the St. Lawrence River. He heard it from the two Indian Youths. "Kanata" means "village" or "settlement". Cartier explored what became known as Newfoundland, the Magdalen Islands, Prince Edward Island, and the Gaspé Peninsula, and was the first explorer to map the St. Lawrence River. Also going three times back and forth from France to Canada and from Canada to France. Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491–September 1, 1557) was a French navigator sent by French King Francis I to the New World to find gold and diamonds and a new route to Asia. Jacques Cartier, (born 1491, Saint-Malo, Brittany, France—died September 1, 1557, near Saint-Malo), French mariner, whose explorations of the Canadian coast and the St. Lawrence River (1534, 1535, 1541–42) laid the basis for later French claims to North America (see New France). Cartier actually was the first European to call this land "Kanata".