Long a transportation route to Indigenous peoples, the St. Lawrence River has played a key role in the history of Canada and in the development of cities such as Montreal and Quebec City. The river remains an important shipping route as the backbone of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a lock and canal system that enables world marine traffic to access the inland ports of the Great Lakes Waterway.
Etymology
The river has been called a variety of names by local First Nations. Beginning in the 16th century, French explorers visited what is now Canada and gave the river names such as the Grand fleuve de Hochelaga and the Grande rivière du Canada,[3] where fleuve and rivière are two French words (fleuve being a river that flows into the sea).
The river's present name has been used since 1604 when it was recorded on a map by Samuel de Champlain[3] Champlain opted for the names Grande riviere de sainct Laurens and Fleuve sainct Laurens in his writings, supplanting the earlier names.[3] In contemporary French, the name is rendered as the fleuve Saint-Laurent. The name Saint-Laurent (Saint Lawrence) was originally applied to the eponymous bay by Jacques Cartier upon his arrival into the region on the 10th of August feast day for Saint Lawrence in 1535.[3]
Today, the river is still known by Indigenous nations by a number of distinct names. Innu-aimun, the language of Nitassinan, refers to it as Wepistukujaw Sipo/Wepìstùkwiyaht sīpu;[3][4] the Abenaki call it Moliantegok/Moliantekw ("Montréal River"),[3]Kchitegw/Ktsitekw/Gicitegw ("Great River"),[4] or Oss8genaizibo/Ws8genaisibo/Wsogenaisibo ("River of the Algonquins");[4] the Mohawk refer to it in Kanienʼkéha as Roiatatokenti, Raoteniateara,[3]Ken’tarókwen,[5] or Kaniatarowanénhne;[6] the Tuscarora call it Kahnawáˀkye or Kaniatarowanenneh ("Big Water Current");[7] the Algonquins (or Omàmiwininiwak) call it "the Walking Path" or Magtogoek[3][8] or Kitcikanii sipi, the "Large Water River";[4][9] the Huron-Wendats refer to it as Lada8anna or Laooendaooena;[4] and, the Atikamekw of Nitaskinan refer to it as Micta sipi ("Huge River").
Geography
With the draining of the Champlain Sea, due to a rebounding continent from the Last Glacial Maximum, the St. Lawrence River was formed. The Champlain Sea lasted from about 13,000 years ago to about 10,000 years ago and was continuously shrinking during that time, a process that continues today.[10][11] The head of the St. Lawrence River, near Lake Ontario, is home to the Thousand Islands.[12]
The St. Lawrence River runs 3,058 kilometres (1,900mi) from the farthest headwater to the mouth and 1,197km (743.8mi) from the outflow of Lake Ontario. These numbers include the estuary; without the estuary, the length from Lake Ontario is c. 500km (c. 300mi). The farthest headwater is the North River in the Mesabi Range at Hibbing, Minnesota. Its drainage area, which includes the Great Lakes, the world's largest system of freshwater lakes, is 1,344,200 square kilometres (518,998.5sqmi), of which 839,200km2 (324,016.9sqmi) is in Canada and 505,000km2 (194,981.6sqmi) is in the United States. The basin covers parts of Ontario and Quebec in Canada, parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and nearly the entirety of the state of Michigan in the United States. The average discharge below the Saguenay River is 16,800 cubic metres per second (590,000cuft/s). At Quebec City, it is 12,101m3/s (427,300cuft/s). The average discharge at the river's source, the outflow of Lake Ontario, is 7,410m3/s (262,000cuft/s).[2]
The St. 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 the Iapetus Ocean. The faults in the area are rift-related and comprise the Saint Lawrence rift system.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the St. Lawrence Valley is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division, containing the Champlain section.[16] However, in Canada, where most of the valley is, it is instead considered part of a distinct St. Lawrence Lowlands physiographic division, and not part of the Appalachian division at all.[17]
Sources and tributaries
The source of the North River in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota (Seven Beaver Lake) is considered to be the source of the St. Lawrence River. Because it crosses so many lakes, the water system frequently changes its name. From source to mouth, the names are:
Looking North East where the St. Lawrence River narrows, between Quebec City (left foreground) and Lévis (seen at right). The Île d'Orléans appears in the central distance.
In the early 17th century, the Huron-Wendat Nation migrated from their original country of Huronia to what is now known as Nionwentsïo centred around Wendake.[23][24] Nionwentsïo occupies both the north and south shores of the river,[23] overlapping with Nitassinan and the more western Wabanaki or Dawnland countries.[22] Adjacent on the north shore is the Atikamekw territorial homeland of Nitaskinan[25][26] and, upstream, the further reaches of Anishinaabewaki, specifically the homelands of the Algonquin and Mississauga Nations.[22]
European exploration
The Norse explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 11th century and were followed by fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century European mariners, such as John Cabot, and the brothers Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real. The first European explorer known to have sailed up the St. Lawrence River itself was Jacques Cartier. At that time, the land along the river described as "about two leagues, a mountain as tall as a heap of wheat" was inhabited by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. During Cartier's second voyage in 1535, because Cartier arrived in the estuary on Saint Lawrence's feast day 10 August, he named it the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.[27][28]
The St. Lawrence River is today partly within the U.S. and as such is that country's sixth oldest surviving European place-name.[29]
Early colonists
The earliest regular Europeans in the area were the Basques, who came to the St Lawrence Gulf and River in pursuit of whales from the early 16th century. The Basque whalers and fishermen traded with indigenous Americans and set up settlements, leaving vestiges all over the coast of eastern Canada and deep into the St. Lawrence River. Basque commercial and fishing activity reached its peak before the Armada Invencible's disaster (1588), when the Basque whaling fleet was confiscated by King Philip II of Spain. Initially, the whaling galleons from Labourd were not affected by the Spanish defeat.
Until the early 17th century, the French used the name Rivière du Canada to designate the St. Lawrence upstream to Montreal and the Ottawa River after Montreal. The St. Lawrence River served as the main route for European exploration of the North American interior, first pioneered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.
In 1809, the first steamboat to ply its trade on the St. Lawrence was built and operated by John Molson and associates, a scant two years after Fulton's steam-powered navigation of the Hudson River. The Accommodation with ten passengers made her maiden voyage from Montreal to Quebec City in 66 hours, for 30 of which she was at anchor. She had a keel of 75 feet, and a length overall of 85 feet. The cost of a ticket was eight dollars upstream, and nine dollars down. She had berths that year for twenty passengers.[30]
Within a decade, daily service was available in the hotly-contested Montreal-Quebec route.[31]
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 St. Lawrence Seaway, was officially opened on 26 June 1959 by Elizabeth II (representing Canada) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower (representing the United States). The Seaway (including the Welland Canal) now permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior.
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.[32]
A Canadian animated short film, directed by Frédéric Back, The Mighty River (French: Le Fleuve aux grandes eaux) was released in 1993. It won a number of awards in America, Asia, and Europe, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
"Physiographic Regions of Canada"(PDF). Natural Resources Canada. Natural Resources Canada. Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
Bideaux, Michel (1986). Jacques Cartier: Relations (in French). Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal. pp.130–131. Retrieved 20 November 2021– via Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
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