Kingdom of Saguenay
The name Kingdom of Saguenay (in the French original: Royaume du Saguenay ) has its origin in a legend of the Algonquin Indians, which was taken over and spread by the French during the French colonization of what is now western Canada in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to this legend, there was a kingdom in the north, rich in gold and furs and inhabited by fair-haired people, called Saguenay. At the time of his captivity in France in the 1530s, the Saint Lawrence Iroquois reported to Donnacona about this land, claiming that there were large mines of gold and silver there . A kind of Canadian El Dorado myth developed from this. French explorers and adventurers searched in vain for this kingdom. The myth was, for example, an occasion for the explorer Jacques Cartier's trip to Canada in 1536/37.
The Saguenay Kingdom is now believed to be a mere myth , either out of a misunderstanding or an attempt by the Algonquins to mislead the French. There is also the theory that Saguenay is an oral tradition of an early European attempt at colonization in North America, comparable to the former Viking settlement in today's L'Anse aux Meadows .
The name Saguenay survived in a variety of place names in what is now Canada, such as the city of Saguenay or the river of the same name and also gave its name to an order in Canada. For tourist advertising purposes, the region around the city of Saguenay is still sometimes called the "Kingdom of Saguenay".