The crew consisted of about 112 persons, and in addition there were the two Indian youths who had been kidnapped on the previous voyage, and were now returning as interpreters.

Instead, however, of reaching Newfoundland in twenty days, he spent five weeks crossing the Atlantic before he reached his rendezvous with the other ships at Blanc Sablon, on the south coast of Labrador; for the easy access to the Gulf of St.Lawrence through Cabot Strait (between Newfoundland and Cape Breton) was not yet realized.

Once past Anticosti Island, the two Huron interpreters began to recognize the scenery.[4] They now explained to Cartier that he had entered the estuary of a vast river.

This they said he had only to pursue in ships and boats and he would reach "Canada" (which was the name they gave to the district round about Quebec), and that beyond "Canada" no man had ever been known to reach the end of this great water; but, they added, it was fresh water, not salt, and this last piece of information much disheartened Cartier, who feared that he had not, after all, discovered the water route across North America to the Pacific Ocean.

He therefore turned about and once more searched the opposite coast of Labrador most minutely, displaying, as he did so, a seamanship which was little else than marvellous, for it is a very dangerous coast, the seas are very stormy, and the look-out often hampered by a sudden rising of dense fog; there are islands and rocks (some of them almost hidden by the water) and sandbanks; but Cartier made this survey of southern Labrador without an accident.
[Footnote 4: Anticosti Island received from Cartier the name of "the Island of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin", in consequence of his having discovered it to be an island on the feast day of that name.