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St. Lawrence River

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The Saint Lawrence River (French: fleuve Saint-Laurent; Tuscarora: Kahnawáˀkye;[1] Mohawk: Kaniatarowanenneh, meaning "big waterway") is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage of the Great Lakes Basin. The river traverses the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and forms part of the international boundary between Ontario and New York in the United States.

Geography

The Saint Lawrence River originates at the outflow of Lake Ontario between Kingston, Ontario, on the north bank, Wolfe Island in mid-stream, and Cape Vincent, New York. From there, it passes Gananoque, Brockville, Ogdensburg, Massena, Cornwall, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Quebec City before draining into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world.

Downstream from Quebec City, the St. Lawrence widens into a huge estuary.

The river runs 3,058 km (1,900 mi) from the furthest headwater to the mouth and 1,197 km (743.8 mi) from the outflow of Lake Ontario. The farthest headwater is the North River in the Mesabi Range at Hibbing, Minnesota. Its drainage area, which includes the Great Lakes and hence the world's largest system of fresh water lakes, has a size of 1,344,200 km2 (518,998.5 sq mi), of which 839,200 km2 (324,016.9 sq mi) is in Canada and 505,000 km2 (194,981.6 sq mi) is in the United States. The basin covers the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The average discharge at the mouth is 9,850 m3/s (347,800 cu ft/s).[2]

The river includes Lake Saint-Louis south of Montreal, Lake Saint Francis at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal. It encompasses three archipelagoes: the Thousand Islands chain near Kingston, Ontario; the Hochelaga Archipelago, including the Island of Montreal and Île Jésus (Laval); and the smaller Mingan Archipelago. Other islands include Île d'Orléans near Quebec City, and Anticosti Island north of the Gaspé. It is the second longest river in Canada.

Lake Champlain and the Ottawa, Richelieu, and Saguenay rivers drain into the St. Lawrence.

The Saint Lawrence River is in a seismically active zone where fault reactivation is believed to occur along late Proterozoic to early Paleozoic normal faults related to the opening of Iapetus Ocean. The faults in the area are rift related, which is called the Saint Lawrence rift system.

The Saint Lawrence Valley is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division, containing the Champlain and Northern physiographic section.[3]

History

The St. Lawrence estuary was visited by many navigators (such as John Cabot and Jacques Cartier) and Basque fishermen soon after the discovery of America (or perhaps even before, see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact#Late contact claims). But the first known European explorer to sail the inland part of the St. Lawrence was Jacques Cartier, during his second trip to Canada in 1535, with the help of Iroquoian chief Donnacona's two sons. As he arrived in the estuary on St. Lawrence's feast day, Cartier accordingly named it the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[4] The land along the river was inhabited at the time by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. The St. Lawrence River is partly within the U.S. and as such is that country's sixth oldest surviving European place-name.[5]

Map of 1543 showing Cartier's discoveries.

Until the early 1600s, the French used the name Rivière du Canada to designate the Saint Lawrence upstream to Montreal and the Ottawa River after Montreal. The Saint Lawrence River served as the main route for European exploration of the North American interior, first pioneered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.

Control of the river was crucial to British strategy to capture New France in the Seven Years' War. Having captured Louisbourg in 1758, the British sailed up to Quebec the following year thanks to charts drawn up by James Cook. British troops were ferried via the St. Lawrence to attack the city from the west, which they successfully did at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

Because of the virtually impassable Lachine Rapids, the St. Lawrence was once continuously navigable only as far as Montreal. Opened in 1825, the Lachine Canal was the first to allow ships to pass the rapids. An extensive system of canals and locks, known as the Saint Lawrence Seaway, was officially opened on 26 June 1959 by Queen Elizabeth II (representing Canada) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower (representing the United States). The Seaway now permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior.

During the Second World War, the Battle of the St. Lawrence involved a number of submarine and anti-submarine actions throughout the lower St. Lawrence River and the entire Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Strait of Belle Isle and Cabot Strait from May to October 1942, September 1943, and again in October and November 1944. During this time, German U-boats sank a number of merchant marine ships and three Canadian warships.

In the late 1970s, the river was the subject of a successful ecological campaign (called "Save the River"), originally responding to planned development by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The campaign was organized, among others, by Abbie Hoffman.

Names

The source of the North River in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota (Seven Beaver Lake) is considered to be the source of the Saint Lawrence River. Because it crosses so many lakes, the water system frequently changes its name. From source to mouth, the names are:

Saint Lawrence River between Quebec City (seen at left) and Lévis (seen at right). The Île d'Orléans appears further in the centre.

Works

The St. Lawrence River is at the heart of many Quebec novels (Anne Hébert's Kamouraska, Réjean Ducharme's L'avalée des avalés), poems (in works of Pierre Morency, Bernard Pozier), and songs (Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, Michel Rivard's L'oubli). The river has also been portrayed in paintings, notably by the Group of Seven. In addition, the river is the namesake of Saint-Laurent Herald at the Canadian Heraldic Authority.

In 1980, Jacques Cousteau traveled to Canada to make two films on the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, Cries from the Deep and St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Rudes, B. Tuscarora English Dictionary Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Atlas was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Physiographic divisions of the conterminous U. S." U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved 2007-12-06.
  4. ^ William Henry Johnson, French Pathfinders in North America (Project Gutenberg)
  5. ^ The Spanish names Florida, Dry Tortugas, Cape Canaveral, Appalachian, and California appeared earlier.....From Spanish historian Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas's accounts, published in 1601 -- Stewart, George (1945). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. New York: Random House. pp. 11–17, 29.
  6. ^ "Saint Lawrence River and Seaway". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
  7. ^ "Saint Lawrence". MSN Encarta. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
  8. ^ Ohayon, Albert (2009). "When Cousteau Came to Canada". NFB.ca. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
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