Editing Sable Island (section)

===Early history===
The expedition of Portuguese explorer [[João Álvares Fagundes]] explored this region in 1520–1521 and his expedition was among the first Europeans to encounter the island. It is likely that he named the island "Fagunda" after himself.<ref name=sablefriends>{{cite web|url=https://sableislandfriends.ca/?p=148 |title=A Brief History of Sable Island |publisher=Friends of Sable Island |date=September 4, 2012 |access-date=January 2, 2014}}</ref> An island called ''Fagunda'' appears on later Portuguese maps placed to the southeast of Cape Breton, fairly near its present location; however, the identification of Sable Island with Fagunda is not certain.<ref name="dcb">{{cite DCB |title=Fagundes, João Álvares |first=L. A. |last=Vigneras |volume=1 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fagundes_joao_alvares_1E.html}}</ref> On the other hand, 16th-century Portuguese sources describe a fishing colony founded by the navigator in [[Cape Breton Island]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Tratado das ilhas novas e descombrimento dellas e outras couzas, 1570|language=pt |last=de Souza|first=Francisco|url={{Google books|3WMDAAAAQAAJ|plainurl=yes}}|page=6}}</ref> further north. It is also possible that Fagundes sighted the island while heading southwest, reaching the [[Bay of Fundy]], as the 1558 map of [[Diogo Homem]] and later [[Samuel de Champlain]] suggested, but this is unclear.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mta.ca/marshland/topic3_europeans/european.htm|title=Marshlands: Records of Life on the Tantramar: European Contact and Mapping|publisher=Mount Allison University|date=August 18, 2004|archive-date=August 18, 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040818201139/http://www.mta.ca/marshland/topic3_europeans/european.htm}}</ref> The island was inhabited sporadically by sealers, shipwreck survivors, and salvagers known as "[[Wrecking (shipwreck)|wreckers]]".

[[Troilus de Mesqouez|Troilus de La Roche de Mesgouez]] attempted to colonize the treeless and stoneless Sable Island with a group of convicts and soldiers in 1598. Most of the settlers died in a mutiny, but a few managed to survive in mud dwellings for five years before being returned to France in 1603.<ref>{{cite book|last=Black|first=Conrad|author-link=Conrad Black|title=Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada From the Vikings to the Present|url={{Google books|BoN5BAAAQBAJ|plainurl=yes}}|date=2014|publisher=McClelland & Stewart|isbn=978-0-7710-1355-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/page-28-eng.asp |title=Chapter 2: Soldiers of the Sixteenth Century |work=Canadian Military Heritage |publisher=Department of National Defence |date=November 3, 2011 |access-date=February 19, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225234633/http://cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/page-28-eng.asp |archive-date=December 25, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Riendeau2007">{{cite book|first=Roger E. |last=Riendeau|title=A Brief History of Canada|url={{Google books|CFWy0EfzlX0C|plainurl=yes}}|year=2007|publisher=Infobase|isbn=978-1-4381-0822-3|page=36}}</ref>