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The Saint Lawrence River (French: fleuve Saint-Laurent) is a large west-to-east flowing river in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is called Kaniatarowanenneh ("big waterway") in Mohawk. It traverses the Canadian province of Quebec and forms part of the border between the state of New York in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada.
The Saint Lawrence River is born at the outflow of Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario. From there, it passes Brockville, Cornwall, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Quebec City before draining into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world. It runs 3,058 kilometers (1,900 miles) from the furthest headwater to the mouth (1,197 km or 744 miles from the outflow of Lake Ontario). The furthest headwater is the North River, Mesabi Range, Minnesota. Its drainage area, which includes the Great Lakes and hence the world's largest system of fresh water lakes, has a size of 1.03 million km². The average discharge at the mouth is 10,400 m³/s.
The river includes Lac Saint-Louis south of Montreal, Lac Saint-François at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec and Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal. It surrounds such islands as the Thousand Islands near Kingston, the Island of Montreal, Île Jésus (Laval), Île d'Orléans near Quebec City, and Anticosti Island north of the Gaspé.
Lake Champlain and the Ottawa, Richelieu, and Saguenay rivers drain into the St. Lawrence.
The first European to navigate the St. Lawrence was Jacques Cartier, who on 9 June 1534 first sighted the river and also claimed New France for Francis I. 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 exploration of the North American interior from Europe.
The St. Lawrence was formerly continuously navigable only as far as Montreal due to the Lachine Rapids. The Lachine Canal was the first to allow ships to pass the rapids; the Saint Lawrence Seaway, an extensive system of canals and locks, now permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior.
In the late 1970's, the river was the subject of a successful environmental campaign (called "Save the River"), originally responding to planned development by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The campaign was organised, among others, by Abbie Hoffman, who at the time was on the run under the pseudonym of Barry Freed.
Names
A note on translation: Occasionally, the French name fleuve Saint-Laurent is wrongly translated as Saint Lawrence Seaway, on the idea that it uses the word fleuve, not rivière. However, the word fleuve means a large river, which runs to the ocean or sea. There is no word in English that distinguishes this type of a river from others, and thus is appropriately translated by river. The seaway is a system of artificial canals, and is called in French la voie maritime du Saint-Laurent.
The source of the North River in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota 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:
- North River
- Saint Louis River
- Lake Superior
- Saint Marys River
- Lake Huron
- Saint Clair River
- Lake Saint Clair
- Detroit River
- Lake Erie
- Niagara River
- Lake Ontario
- Saint Lawrence River
Crossings
From east to west:
- Île d'Orléans Bridge near Montmorency Falls (does not cross the entire river)
- Quebec Bridge (road and rail) in Quebec City
- Pierre Laporte Bridge in Quebec City
- Laviolette Bridge in Trois-Rivières
- Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge-Tunnel in Montreal
- Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal
- Montreal Metro Line 4 Yellow Tunnel in Montreal
- Concorde Bridge in Montreal
- Victoria Bridge (road and rail) in Montreal
- Champlain Bridge in Montreal
- Honoré Mercier Bridge in Montreal
- Saint-Laurent Railway Bridge (rail) in Montreal
- Boulevard Edgar Hebert Bridge
- Monseigneur Langlois Bridge in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield
- Rail bridge in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield
- Former Cornwall Bridge (rail) in Cornwall
- Seaway International Bridge in Cornwall
- Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge in Ogdensburg
- Thousand Islands Bridge at Wellesley Island
Literature
The St-Lawrence River is at the heart of many Québec 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 (Leonard Cohen song), 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.
See also
External links
- Regional Geography of the St. Lawrence River
- St. Lawrence Parks Commission (Ontario)
- Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System
- Safe Passage: Aids to Navigation on the St. Lawrence — Historical essay, illustrated with drawings and photographs
- Annotated Bibliography on St. Lawrence County and Northern New York region.
- "Save the River"
- Fishing the St. Lawrence River
Saint Lawrence River | Basins of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence
Sint-Laurensrivier | Riu Sant Llorenç | Řeka Svatého Vavřince | Saint Lawrence | Sankt-Lorenz-Strom | Saint Lawrence'i jõgi | Río San Lorenzo | Rivero Sankt-Laŭrenco | Fleuve Saint-Laurent | San Lorenzo (fiume) | סנט לורנס (נהר) | Sint-Laurensrivier | セントローレンス川 | Rzeka Świętego Wawrzyńca | Rio São Lourenço (América do Norte) | Река Святого Лаврентия | Saint Lawrence River | Rieka svätého Vavrinca | St. Lawrence (joki) | Saint Lawrencefloden | 圣劳伦斯河
"Saint Lawrence River"