Saint Lawrence River 
The Saint Lawrence River (In
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 provinces of
Quebec and
Ontario and forms part of the provincial boundary
between Québec and Ontario and part of the
international boundary between
Canada and the
U.S. state of
New York.
The Saint Lawrence River originates 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 kilometres
(1,900 mi) from the furthest headwater to the mouth (1,197 kilometres
or 744 mi from the outflow of Lake Ontario). The furthest
headwater is the
North River in the
Mesabi Range of
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 square kilometres
(390,000 mi²). The average discharge at the mouth is
10,400 cubic metres per second (367,000 ft³/s).The river
includes
Lake Saint-Louis south of Montreal,
Lac Saint-François at
Salaberry-de-Valleyfield 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 Québec 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 because of 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 1970s, the river was the
subject of a successful environmental 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, who at the time was on the run under the
pseudonym of Barry Freed.
(Source by
Wikipedia) |
