1 Dollar - Elizabeth II First French settlement in America

The "first French settlement in America" commemorated here is Île Sainte-Croix, the disastrous 1604 winter camp established by de Monts and Champlain on a small island in the St. Croix River — now the Maine-New Brunswick border. Of the 79 men who stayed through that winter, 35 died of scurvy before spring. The survivors abandoned the site the following year for Port-Royal, across the Bay of Fundy.

The 400th anniversary fell simultaneously on both sides of a modern international border, which gave the issue unusual binational significance for a Canadian commemorative.