From the archives: Who were the Hochelagans?

Many details about Jacques Cartier’s monumental (though very short) visit to the village of Hochelaga remain murky 482 years later. Perhaps intentionally, Cartier’s writings are vague, and controversy continues to surround Hochelaga’s location as well as the classification of Cartier’s Indigenous hosts.
Archeologists say the language and customs of Hochelagans — whom they classify as Iroquoians — were similar but not identical to Iroquois nations such as