Second Chances

Michel Jean’s Ninan is mostly set in a Montreal park south of the old Forum, on the corner of Rue Ste‑Catherine and Avenue Atwater. This is Square Cabot, which is dominated by a statue of John Cabot — as Giovanni Caboto was known in English — who set sail from Bristol at Henry VII’s behest three times in search of a westward trade route to Asia. In 1497, his second voyage led him to the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador — perhaps even to Nova Scotia and as far south as Maine. That year, he might have seen a few Beothuk or Innu people of the region — and he certainly noticed that the waters were teeming with cod.

While there are claims that Basque and Portuguese mariners had already ventured to the Grand Banks, Cabot and his crew were only the second group of Europeans to leave evidence that they had reached what would become Canada (following Norse explorers around 1000 CE). He provided England with an interest in the so‑called New World, with reports of...