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Map of the St Lawrence/Great Lakes Watershed
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Lake Ontario
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Gulf Of St Lawrence / Atlantic Ocean
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Canada ( Ontario , Quebec ) <br /> United States ( Illinois , Indiana , Michigan , Minnesota , New York , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Vermont , Wisconsin )
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1,197 km
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250 m (820 ft)
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10,400 m³/s (367,328 ft³/s)
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1,030,000 km² (397,683 mi²)
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The ( in the middle latitudes of
North America , connecting the
Great Lakes with the
Atlantic Ocean . It was 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 km&
2. 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 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.
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'' simply means a river that runs to the sea, and is appropriately translated by ''river''. The seaway is a system of artificial canals, and is called in French ''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 Saint Lawrence River frequently changes its name. From source to mouth, the names are:
From east to west:
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 '', Michel Rivard's ''L'oubli''). The river has also been portrayed in paintings, notably by the
Group Of Seven .
