Once upon a time there was a majestic river, arms open to the ocean. To meet him came explorers who saw in this invitation a passage to a commercial Eden called the Orient. It was from this encounter in the 16th century that our nation was born.
If historians have called the St. Lawrence “the gateway to the continent”, the first navigators were no less going to bump their noses there. The rapids, waterfalls, currents, shoals, mist and ice are all obstacles where their dreams have been stranded. Already, Jacques Cartier had been stopped in his quest for the Northwest Passage by the Lachine Rapids, just at the foot of what was to become Montreal.
A natural trade route
However, long before the arrival of the Europeans, the St. Lawrence was the place of supply, exchange and commerce used by the Aboriginal peoples who traveled hundreds of kilometers in bark canoes on what they had named “the path that walks”. From the days of the fur trade, through timber, then grain and iron, Canada’s socio-economic development has depended on the waterways of the St. Lawrence.
Port activity
A transit point for raw materials from the east, the Québec region was at the heart of the timber trade in the 19th century. During this period, Quebec was therefore the center of economic activity from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
For its part, port activity in Montreal took off around the 1830s when merchants turned to the export of cereals, manufactured products and foodstuffs.
Secondary ports would also contribute to the country’s growth: we are talking in particular about Sorel, Baie-Comeau, Sept-Îles and Port-Cartier.
defy nature
At the beginning of the 19th century, when maritime knowledge evolved at the same time as steam was introduced, the river was going to have to change its face again to make way for ever larger boats. Thus, several dredging works were undertaken, rapids had to be circumvented by force of canals and locks built over the decades, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.
A miracle of engineering
This dream of a trade route linking the new continent to Europe began under the French regime in 1680 with the Lachine Canal. It will materialize on April 25, 1959, the day Queen Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower officially inaugurate the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Today, the sea route that continues to Lake Superior is 3700 km long. According to the International Joint Commission, in 2017, port economic activities totaled $60 billion and provided 329,000 jobs in Canada and the United States1. It is not by chance that the historian Jean-Claude Lasserre mentions that “the St. Lawrence is the heart and the cradle of the Quebec nation2”.
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