A map of Eastern Canada drawn by French explorer Samuel de Champlain has sold at auction for $286,570 Cdn, three times its estimated price.

Sotheby's auction house in London said the work sold to a private collector, but did not give the home country of the new owner.

The rare map of the St. Lawrence River and Eastern Canada, including what is now Newfoundland, was originally estimated to sell for $75,000.

Drawn in 1612, it includes four figures of First Nations people, illustrations of fish, seals and vegetation the French explorer encountered on his voyage to the new world.

Sotheby's called the map "the most important single map in the history of Canada" adding that Champlain had used it in a political struggle to get resources for further voyages and eventual settlement.

"Champlain is more than a cartographer," said a Sotheby's expert. "He is also Canada's first exploration artist. The great map of 1612 shows for the first time the diversity of Canada 's wealth."

By the time Champlain drew this map and wrote his Les voyages du Sieur de Champlain, he had explored the Fundy Coast, Cape Cod and the St. Lawrence region and established Quebec as the site of a settlement.

The London auction house said several bidders, calling in from different continents, bid up the price of the rare document.

Library and Archives Canada has a copy of the Champlain map, one of several copies that survived from a 1613 print run of his map and travel accounts.

With files from the Canadian Press