The name "Kingdom of Saguenay" (French: Royaume du Saguenay) has its origin in an Algonquin legend learned by the French during French colonisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the Algonquin Indians, there was a kingdom to the north of blonde men rich with gold and furs in a place they called Saguenay. While imprisoned in France in the 1530s, Chief Donnacona also told stories about it, claiming it had great mines of silver and gold. French explorers in Canada looked for this kingdom in vain. Today, some people speculate it was an ancient, pre-Columbian settlement to which the Algonquin oral tradition referred. The Algonquins or Algonkins are an aboriginal North American people speaking Algonquin, an Algonquian language. ... General Name, Symbol, Number gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 6, d Appearance metallic yellow Atomic mass 196. ... For alternative meanings, see Fur (disambiguation). ... Chief Donnacona (died c. ... See also explorations, sea explorers, astronaut, conquistador, travelogue, the History of Science and Technology and Biography. ... The term Pre-Columbian is used to refer to the cultures of the New World in the era before significant European influence. ... Oral tradition or oral culture is a way of transmitting history, literature or law from one generation to the next in a civilization without a writing system. ...

The name Saguenay survived in many modern placenames. The modern-day Saguenay region, including the city of Saguenay (Chicoutimi-Jonquière), is on both shores of the Saguenay River in Quebec. It is part of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean administrative region. Saguenay (officially Ville de Saguenay) is a city (2001 pop. ... Chicoutimi was a city of 63 326 (2001 statistics) located 150 to 200 kilometres north of Quebec City on the Saguenay River in the Canadian province of Quebec. ... Jonquière was a city on the Saguenay River in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, near Chicoutimi. ... The Saguenay River is a major river of Quebec, Canada. ... The first European explorer of what is now Quebec was Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross either in the Gaspé in 1534 or at Old Fort Bay on the Lower North Shore and sailed into the St. ... Map of Quebec showing Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean The Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region in Quebec, Canada is distinguished by its physical beauty, especially the Fjord du Saguenay, the estuary of the Saguenay River, stretching through much of the region. ...

Today, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region is sometimes referred to metaphorically as the Kingdom of the Saguenay (Royaume du Saguenay), for example in tourist marketing.

On an unrelated note, a micronational project in the Saguenay region, Le Royaume de L'Anse-Saint-Jean (q.v.), achieved a certain amount of prominence in 1997. 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• L'Anse aux Meadows
• Norumbega