Today, Canada is a multicultural nation, home to members from all walks of life. That wasn't always the case, however. Though it was originally home to the Aboriginal peoples, eastern Canada became a predominantly French settlement more than 100 years after its discovery by the white man. The make-up of Canada began to become more British by the mid-1700s with the fall of Acadia in Atlantic Canada and the defeat of New France in 1760. During most of the late 18th and 19th centuries, Canada would receive most of its immigrants either from Britain or the United States. Some of these settlers from America were called Loyalists as they were still loyal to British interests, not ones belonging to the new colony south of the Great Lakes. By the late 1800s, Canada had a national railway system that was able to transport settlers who were European in origin. Many of these latter immigrants were impoverished or escaping religious or political persecution. However, certain groups of immigrants, including Jewish peoples, would be soon prohibited from entering Canada during the two World Wars and the Great Depression. Since the late 1960s, though, most of Canada has generally become more tolerant in bringing in more political refugees and immigrants from various countries around the world. Exploration of Canada by Europeans began with the Norse in the late 10th century on the country’s East Coast. Following Jacques Cartier’s arrival in 1534, over the course of the next three centuries British and French explorers gradually moved further west. Commercial, resource-based interests often drove exploration; for example, a westward route to Asia and later, the fur trade. By the mid-19th century most of the main geographical features of Canada had been mapped by European colonists. For nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries, the fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. Sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers