Send Gift Baskets to Calais, France

There needs to be more evidence of early habitation in the area. Caletum was the name given to the settlement by the Romans. Due to Calais’ strategic location, Julius Caesar mustered 800 to 1,000 sailing boats, five legions, and some 2,000 horses to attack Britannia. It remained an island surrounded by marshes, making it almost impossible to attack from the land for many centuries. An early medieval fishing village on a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek near the river Aa’s estuary on the west edge, it would have been a Dutch-speaking settlement before the 10th century. Due to the expansion of the pebble and sand ridge eastward from Calais, the haven behind it gradually developed into a fen as the estuary filled with silt and peat. As a result, canals were cut between Saint-Omer, previously at the head of the estuary, and Calais, Gravelines, and Dunkirk, respectively, on the newly formed coast. The Count of Boulogne built a fortification in 1224 after the Count of Flanders improved in 997 Calais.

It was in 1181 that Mathieu d’Alsace, Count of Boulogne, granted Gerard de Guelders a charter that mentions the existence of this community. Calais thus became part of the county of Boulogne. A document documents Richard the Lionheart’s arrival at Calais in 1189 as he embarked on the Third Crusade.

Calais jungle, the nickname given to a series of makeshift camps in the vicinity of Calais, has become home to an increasing number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers since 1999. They resided there while waiting for the French asylum system to process their asylum claims or as they tried to stow away on lorries, ferries, cars, or trains. In addition to asylum seekers, they came from underdeveloped or conflict-ridden countries in Africa and Asia, such as Darfur, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Eritrea.